


A Stranger Day Off

by Lastelle21



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Ferris Bueller AU, Gen, Mild Angst, Mild Language, Post-Season/Series 02, Season 3 holds no bearing on this fic, let these kids have a day off, like the mildest angst imaginable, outside pov, these kids like to curse but I don't so it's a lot less than in the show, tons of references to the movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 15:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20996951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lastelle21/pseuds/Lastelle21
Summary: The end of high school comes with several problems: the workload, the stress of college applications, GPA, summer internships, the inevitable end of era of seeing your best friends every day. All of that, coupled with three weeks of no sun, kind of builds up until it's impossible to focus in school.At least, it did for Dustin.So when he wakes up to a beautiful sunrise on a Friday, he thinks to himself, "Who could go to school on a day like this?" Certainly not him. Or any of his friends.Ferris Bueller's Day Off AU





	A Stranger Day Off

**Author's Note:**

> !!!PLEASE read this like season 3 didn't happen!!! Nothing against s3, but I started this way before it came out so none of the s3 elements are in it.

Dustin woke up to pale sunlight slanting through the curtains covering his window, and it took his sleep-addled mind a few minutes to figure out what that meant. And when he did, he fell out of bed and rushed to the window. A peek outside confirmed his suspicious, and the sleepiness fell away to leave excitement in its path.

“Hell yeah,” he whispered. It was time to enact his plan.

Dustin had woken up five minutes before his alarm went off, so he shut it off and slipped out of his room. He walked to the restroom, snagging a washcloth from the linen closet on the way. This was a well-rehearsed trick: he needed to be cold and clammy, specifically _not _feverish. Feverish meant a trip to the doctor and an inevitable drop-off at the school when the doctor told his mother that there was absolutely nothing wrong with him.

He ran the washcloth under cold water, and once he was satisfied with how cold it was he wrung it out and headed back to his room. It was time to work fast. His mother would be ready for work in the next few minutes and when she stopped by his room to check that he was awake he needed to be ready. That meant curtains drawn, sticky hands, and the performance of a lifetime. Dustin scrubbed the washcloth over his face and chest and curled into a tight ball on the bed just as he heard a light knock on the door.

“hhnghh,” he groaned. His mother took that as a sign to come in.

“Oh Dusty,” she said, stepping further into the room, “you’re gonna be late for school.”

Dustin poked his head out from under the covers and blinked up at her. “Mom? Is that you? I don’t feel so good.”

He watched her face scrunch up in concern. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead, frowned deeper, and sat on the edge of his bed.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she instructed.

“Well. I woke up when my alarm went off, and my whole head just feels fuzzy. And my stomach—” Dustin paused to let out a moan before continuing. “It feels all out of whack. I told you that fish we had last night tasted funny.”

His mother squinted at him so closely he swore she could see right through him. It was time for the final straw. “I have a bio test today, I can still go—" He moved to get up, but his mother pushed him back down.

“You can’t possibly do well on a test in your condition, Dustin, no.” He could see her contemplating. The alarm clock on his bedside table read 7:41, and she was usually gone by 45. Dustin was banking on the fact that she’d already been late once this week and couldn’t afford to be late again. Only four minutes to decide. Dustin grabbed his mother’s hand, and she immediately pulled back.

“Dusty, why are your hands so clammy?”

Dustin made a noise between a groan and an ‘I don’t know’. This was the last trick. Clammy hands were so nonspecific that it would throw her for a loop. Even now, he could see her struggling to puzzle out what was ailing him. She glanced at the alarm clock.

“I’m going to let you stay home, today, alright? But you need to rest. We’ve got some orange juice in the fridge and a couple cans of soup in the cabinet.” Dustin nodded weakly at her.

“I’ll be busy today, but I’ll try to call. Tews will keep you safe.” She leaned over a pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Bye, Dusty. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom,” Dustin said. He watched her gently shut the door and waited till he heard the garage open before getting out of bed and returning to the window. He opened his curtains just a crack, to watch his mother driver away, before yanking them all the way open. Bright, early-morning sunlight filtered into the room, and Dustin sighed happily. It had been three long weeks without any sighting from the sun, and a cloudless sky like this one was a welcome change. Dustin allowed himself ten seconds of admiration time before rushing to the phone.

This was where timing was crucial; he could bust Will and El out no problem, but he needed to get them before they left the house. He tapped his foot impatiently as the phone rang.

“Pick up,” he muttered, the same moment heard “Hello?”

“Chief! Are Will and El still home?”

There was a brief pause on the other end, and Dustin could swear Hop was pinching the bridge of his nose. In Hop’s defense, it _was _particularly early for shenanigans. “Yeah,” Hop said. “They’re still here. Why?”

Dustin had it all worked out: he knew that Joyce and Hop had not been… the most well-behaved students at Hawkins High. He’d spent enough time listening to Joyce tell stories (with Hop’s gruff interjections) about the stuff they got up to. They’d skipped school so many times that a truancy notice had been sent to both their parents.

“Wouldn’t you say that we’re good kids? We get good grades, we go to school, we hang out responsibly, we—”

“—Get involved in government conspiracies and interdimensional conflicts?”

How dare he. That was an _accident. _Dustin decided to let it slide. _Clearly, _flowery language was not going to work on this guy. Dustin took a deep breath.

“Listen, Chief. We only have a month of school left, and we’ve worked _hard. _Is it so wrong to want a day off every once and awhile? I know it’s not skip day, but it’s just too nice outside to sit in a classroom all day learning things we already know with people who don’t care. It’s just one day, Hop. We’d be responsible. Nothing would happen.”

“You’d be the first to know,” Dustin said honestly. It had been almost a year and a half since the last incident, but it was still fresh enough in everyone’s mind to keep them wary.

Hopper grunted, as if considering. He said, “hang on a minute,” and Dustin heard him holler for Joyce. Dustin leaned against the wall with the receiver cradled on is shoulder. He listened to the vague sound of Joyce and Hop talking. Tews walked between his legs and purred up at him.

He heard a shuffling sound. “What’s your plan for today, kid?”

Dustin grinned. He knew he’d won. “I was thinking Indianapolis. A day trip. I’ve got some bucks saved up.”

“Fine. We’re letting Will take the car. If you’re gonna be back late, _call. _The last thing I need to be worried about is if a bunch of kids got kidnapped by the CIA or something.”

Dustin snorted. “We won’t get kidnapped, and we’re not kids anymore, but okay. Can you pass Will the phone? And thank you, Hop.”

Dustin heard him grumble out a _yeah, yeah _and there was a pause before he heard Will’s voice on the phone.

“Thanks for bailing us out, Dustin. How’d your mom let you off?”

Dustin examined his nails. “I’m just a genius. She thinks I’m sick with some nonspecific stomach pains and clammy hands. And she works late today, so I’m in the clear. Can you come get me?”

“Yeah, wait, hold on,” Will paused, and Dustin heard the distant sound of El’s voice on the other line.

“El wants to know how we’re bailing everyone else out.”

Dustin cracked a grin. “Just leave that to me, I’ve got a plan. I’ll be ready by the time you get here.”

Will hung up and Dustin dialed the next number. There hadn’t been a doubt in his mind that Will and El would be easy, but Mike and Lucas were another story. Of course, Max would be easy. She had been sporting the ‘I-do-what-I-want’ attitude since the day they met. Dustin could get her no problem.

Max picked up on the first ring. She sounded like she was eating cereal.

“Hello?”

“Running late again?”

“Shut up, Henderson. What do you need to tell me that is so important it couldn’t wait until I saw you in second period?”

“Don’t come to school today.”

Max chewed silently on the phone for a minute. “Okay. What’s the plan?”

“Will’s gonna pick me up and then we’ll swing by and grab you. Have your parents already gone to work?”

“Yep. See you in a few.”

Dustin hung up and dialed the next number. Things were running smoothly this morning. The phone rang… and rang… and _rang, _until the call dropped. Dustin scowled at the receiver. Of course things couldn’t go easily, that was too much like right. Dustin punched in the number again and leaned against the wall, arms crossed tightly across his chest. He wasn’t sure what they’d do if this didn’t work. He hadn’t exactly come up with a plan b.

Then the line picked up and he heard a groggy “hello?”

Dustin grinned. “Hey, Steve, my man, it’s Dustin. I would love to talk to you but I’m kind of in a rush so is Nancy there?”

Dustin could almost _see_the hazy suspicion forming in Steve’s mind. “Is there something wrong?”

It was a thing they always did, now. If someone called, they made sure it wasn’t an emergency. There’d been one too many calls for them to not check anymore.

“No,” Dustin said. “I’m planning a last-minute skip day for the Party and I need to get Mike out of class without alerting Mrs. Wheeler. I’ve got a plan and Nancy is crucial.”

Dustin waited for a response, and then reared back as Steve shouted Nancy’s name. A moment later, he was talking to Dustin again. “So, you’ve finally decided to become a bad kid, huh?”

Dustin rolled his eyes. He was like, the best person in the whole group. At least, he hadn’t been caught making out in the chem lab like _some people _he knew.

“No matter how bad I become, I’ll never be as bad you, King Steve.”

“I thought I told you never to call me that. I swear to Christ; you kids never respect me.”

Dustin chuckled. The truth was, everyone respected Steve a whole lot, and Steve knew it. Dustin decided to move the conversation along. The clock hanging on the wall of the living room read 8:00 and it did not take that long to get from Will’s house to his own.

“How’s Jonathon?” Dustin asked.

“Huh? Oh he’s good. Better than good. He got some good news at work yesterday, news that we’re not sharing yet?” Dustin listened to a distant confirmation from what he assumed was Jonathon. “Yeah, we’re not sharing it yet. Top secret information, stuff your puny brain couldn’t handle.”

Nancy, Steve, and Jonathon had been an item since El had come back. According to a hodgepodge of accounts from Mike and Will, Nancy and Jonathon both had been seriously mopey after they came back from their secret mission at Murray’s. Dustin, who spent the most time with Steve, could tell that he was definitely out of sorts about _something. _It all came to head one night, when Steve and Nancy had come to Will’s house to drop off Mike and Max for a sleepover DND Campaign, and Jonathon had gone outside to meet them.

The Party had been inside and had definitely not been watching through the window as three whispered among themselves. Steve had turned away, as if to go back to his car, but Jonathon grabbed him and kept him there. There had been more whispers, and the Party speculated wildly about what was being said. And suddenly Nancy yelled something, and then the three of them had looked back at the house. The Party ducked out of the window, and by the time they popped back up the teens and Steve’s car had been missing.

Nancy, Steve, and Jonathon come back late that night, all three of them with puffy eyes and red cheeks, like there’d been a fair amount of crying in whatever went down. But they were all holding hands, and that meant something. They’d disappeared into Jonathon’s room, and from then on, they’d been together. Dustin knew that Joyce and the Chief knew. Considering all the terrible things out there, (demogorgons, for starters) they didn’t mind it all. Dustin didn’t know what Mrs. Wheeler knew, and he’d never even _seen _Steve’s supposed parents. He sincerely doubted they were real. All that mattered was, if they were happy, so was he.

“Oh, here comes Nancy. Have fun today, don’t do what I wouldn’t!”

Dustin listened to some muffled shuffling, and then Nancy was on the phone. “Hey, Dustin. What’s up?”

“Nancy! I’d love to talk longer, but I’m planning a skip day. We gotta get Mike out of class. Do you think you can help us out? I dunno, call the front office or something?”

There was a pause on the other line. “I… I can think of something. Do you need me to do this now?”

“Yeah, right now.” Behind him, the living room door opened and Will and El stepped inside.

“Oh, uh, Will and El just got here, I’ve got to go. Thanks, Nancy!” Dustin hung up the phone and breezed past his friends. Will crossed his arms and squinted at him. He said to El, “Didn’t he was he’d be ready by the time we got here?”

El sat on the sofa. “He did. I say we leave him here.”

Dustin headed for his room. “It’s gonna take me two minutes to change out of my pajamas, you guys. I can’t believe we’re friends.”

It actually took Dustin five minutes to fully get ready, including putting on a hat and brushing his teeth. Dustin came out of his room ready to go, leading Will and El out and climbing into the backseat. Today was going to be a good day.

___________________

Deborah Owens had been working at Hawkins High School for over twenty years now, and she never forgot a student. Even now, there were kids of the kids who went here, and she could proudly say she knew their parents. She was good at her job, thank you very much. And most importantly, she liked it. Not much happened at Hawkins High. The most exciting thing that year was the food fight that had broken out during lunch one day. (Apparently, no one could figure out who had started the fight. It was as though a plate had been launched mysteriously into George Henry’s face.)

Nothing happened at Hawkins High. So the phone ringing just after the bell had signaled the start of first period caught her off guard. Things rolled to a start slowly on school mornings. She put aside her cup of coffee and answered the phone.

“Good morning, Hawkins High School, this is Deborah Owens, how may I help you?”

And a heartbroken voice sobbed back: “Hello, Mrs. Owens. Maybe you don’t remember me, but my name is Nancy Wheeler. I graduated a couple years back?”

Of course she remembers Nancy Wheeler. She’d been the valedictorian, after all. And so nice, stopping by the front office to chitchat every now and then. Her brother, Mike, was just the same. But the poor child sounded so upset, Debbie automatically knew something was wrong. She turned to her computer and started to pull up her brother’s information.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

“M-my mother just called me. Our grandmother just passed away.” Nancy took a drew in a short breath and let out a quiet, cut off sob. “Mom is just beside herself. S-she called to tell me and asked if I could call the school. She needed a few minutes to put herself together, and I…” Nancy trailed off, and Debbie made a sympathetic sound.

Nancy must still be in college, poor thing. Debbie remembered her own grandmother’s passing, just after she’d graduated high school. What a terrible thing for someone so young. Mike was in English class with Alfred Willheim this morning. Debbie turned her attention back to Nancy.

“Now honey, I know what you must be feeling, so I’m not going to keep you on the phone too much longer. Let me ask you, is your mom going to pick your brother up this morning?”

There was a pause on the line, and faintest undeniable sound of someone laughing. A moment later, Nancy spoke up. “Sorry, I nodded. Yes, that’s what she told me.”

Perhaps Debbie had been hallucinating. The pain in Nancy’s voice sounded so real.

“Alright, and will she be here in the next couple of minutes?”

“Yes, hopefully.”

Debbie had a mission on her hands. “Well then, don’t you worry about a thing, Nancy. I’ll have your brother ready for your mom in a jiffy.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Owens. You have no idea how much this means to us. We couldn’t be more grateful.”

It sounded as though a heavy burden had been lifted off her shoulders. Deborah resolved to go get Mike herself; this was a serious matter.

“No problem whatsoever, you just take it easy and get all your affairs in order.” Deborah hung up the phone and resolutely got up from her desk.

What a tragic thing, she thought as she stalked down the hallways towards the English section, to have someone you love die. At least Mike seems to have people who care about him, who want to make this as easy for him as possible. She reached the classroom and opened the door. There was some dreary black-and-white movie playing, and most of the children staring at the screen looked as though they’d rather be doing something else. Mike sat square in the middle of the classroom; his attention turned toward her.

“I need to speak with Michael,” she said. Willheim nodded absently and Mike rose from his chair and followed her back out of the classroom.

“I need to tell you something that’s not going to be easy,” she told him.

Mike looked at her with something unidentifiable in his eyes—she was suddenly struck with the feeling he’d known this was coming.

“Your grandmother… she’s passed away.”

Mike stared at for one second, then two, as though he was processing this information. And then his whole face crumbled and Deborah pulled him into a hug.

“It’s alright dear, it’s alright. Let’s grab your things and get you out of here.”

As Michael went to get his things, Debbie nodded resolutely to herself. She was doing her part to help this boy get through this.

___________________ 

Mike wasn’t stupid. The second he realized the only person meeting him in the A/V club room was Lucas, he’d known something was up. Mike was almost surprised at how quickly a uncomfortable worry settled deep in his stomach. What if something had happened? To Eleven, to Dustin, To Will, or Max? But surely he would’ve known if something was going on? It can’t be serious, maybe they were all sick. There _was _a bug going around. The memory of when Will had caught something flashed through his mind, of him being strapped to a hospital bed and pricked with a needle. Mike felt the color drain from his cheeks.

“Mike?”

What if they had come back for El and he was too late and everyone was gone and—

Mike felt a hand on his shoulder, and when he blinked he was staring into Lucas’s eyes.

“Mike, I need you to get a grip. Nothing is going on, and if something _were _happening, someone would’ve told us. Has the Chief called? Or Joyce? No. So it’s fine. We’ll know what’s up by the end of the day. Though knowing them, it’ll be before then.”

Mike had taken the time to just breathe before the bell. The feeling in stomach settled, and by the time he was sitting in first period he felt calmer.

Mr. Willheim had declared they were watching a movie today, and had wheeled in a tv from the library, popped in a VCR, and passed around a worksheet they were all supposed to complete. Mike had been settled in for a good morning nap when Ms. Owens came in and asked to speak with him.

In the hallway, she had, in watery voice, told him his grandmother had passed away.

Mike had stood there for a moment, processing. Both of his grandmothers had passed away before he turned five. This was elaborate ploy to get him out of school. He needed to play along. So he broke down in front of Ms. Owens, and she’d escorted him to the office with an continuous stream of 'you’ll be okay's.  


Now he was sitting on the uncomfortable sofa in the front office, trying to maintain his depressed face as he thought of a way to get out of there. Mrs. Owens sat behind her desk, typing loudly at the computer and shooting him the occasional, worried glance. Mike glanced at the clock. 8:30, it read. Why hadn’t anyone come to get him yet? They would’ve come to get to him, it didn’t take that long to get to Hawkins High from any of their houses, including Max’s, and she lived the furthest out.

But maybe, nobody was getting him because they couldn’t?

...Oh.

Like an epiphany, Mike remembered not anyone could just check him out of school (A dumb rule, if you asked him. He was eighteen, he should’ve had every right to leave on his own), so they must’ve figured he had a way to get himself out. He sat and thought. What could he play of as a sign of grief to get him outside, into the fresh air?

Fresh air. Mike looked sharply to Mrs. Owens, and when he was satisfied she wasn’t paying attention to him for the moment, he began, slowly, to speed up his breathing until he was hyperventilating.

“Mrs. Owens?” he gasped as she looked over at him. “Please, I need some air, can I sit outside and wait?”

Mrs. Owens studied him before nodding. “Some fresh air might do you some good, young man. Just send your mother in when she gets here to check you out, alright?”

Mike gave her a small nod and left before anything else could happen. It took him a minute to get to the main entrance of the school, and there, parked a little off the school’s long driveway, was Joyce’s car.

He could see Dustin in the passenger seat, arguing with Will in the driver’s seat. In the back, behind Dustin, was Max. She looked out the window at him, grinned, and yelled something at the two in the car. A door opened, and out stepped El.

It didn’t matter how many times Mike saw her. It was always like time slowed down. She had grown more beautiful since the last time he saw her. It was the way her mouth quirked up him when turned to face him, the mischievous glint in her eyes, how the early-morning sun caught her hair, lighting it a startling multitude of browns. She smiled at him, and Mike felt the gentle breeze in the air and the blueness in the sky and all other feelings left his heart until the only thing was pure affection.

El walked up to him, took his hands in hers, and pressed a gentle kiss on his cheek. Each touch alleviated every one of his worries from the morning, until he was lighter than air. Before he could do anything to reciprocate, he felt a light punch on his arm.

“Does your brain stop _always _stop working when you see El, Jesus Mike.”

El pulled back a little, their hands still intertwined, and Mike turned a glare onto Max. It had absolutely no heat behind it. “Nice to see you too, Max. It’s not you’re any different with Lucas, so shut up.”

Max turned pink, but she smirked at him, so he knew he was in the clear. He turned his attention back to El. “Hello, beautiful. It’s been awhile.”

“We saw each other yesterday, Mike.” She pecked him on the lips. “But I know what you mean.”

Max crossed her arms. “Guys, we are standing in front of the school, can you not? We might get caught if we stand around here long enough. Also, we need to get Lucas.”

Mike watched as Dustin rolled down the window of the car behind them. He imagined Dustin would say, ‘ah hello, Mike, good to see you,’ but instead Dustin started pounding on the side of the car door.

“We’re losing daylight, people!” he shouted. “I didn’t bust you out of school so that we could waste the day literally _two feet from the building. _C’mon!”

Mike let go of El. “I’ll let you guys go get Lucas. I guess I’ll get the breakdown of what’s happening from Dustin and Will.”

El nodded. Max had already started trekking across the school lawn. “See you in a few, Mike.”

___________________

Lucas’s first period was AP Physics, and to say he was uninterested in today’s lesson was the understatement of the year. Snails struggling slowly across the road had been known to be more interesting than Mr. Haughtly. Although, to be fair, the Party _had _spent more than a handful of afternoons in the physics section of the public library, books and calculations spread in front of them, debating the math needed to open a portal to another dimension and the consequences thereof. That, Lucas supposed, was a high bar for any teacher to reach.

He wondered instead about whether or whether not there was a situation going on with his friends. Only Mike had shown up for their usual hang-out in the A/V room before class, and that was worrying. They’d promised each other that they’d _communicate_if things ever went sideways again. There’d been a mutual agreement that there was too much of the splintering-off-into-different-groups-and-leading-their-own-investigations, and that they worked better together.

But when Mike had his panic attack, Lucas had two options: panic with him, or trust his friends. And he trusted them, so he coached Mike through it and went to first period with the hope that at the end of the day he’d know what was going on. He sat down at his seat (one specifically located next to the window in case he’d wanted to daydream) and tried to pay attention to Haughtley’s lecture.

Lucas’s pencil rolled off his desk. He bent over to pick it up, but then it kept rolling until it hit the wall with a quiet thud. And then it rolled up the wall, right until it reached the windowsill. And there was Max, poking her head just above the window so that the only thing he saw of her was her eyes and eyebrows. The pencil dropped to the floor and Max’s head disappeared. Seconds later she held up a sheet of paper that read, _Get Ready. Exit from 200 hall._

Lucas waited until Haughtley was turned toward the board before subtly packing his bag. There was moment of pause, and the lights in the classroom turned off.

Haughtley stopped speaking. He turned to look at Thomas Finley, who was sitting closest to the light switch.

“Thomas, I would appreciate it if you could stop messing around—”

The chalk Haughtley had been writing with flew out of his hand and rolled under his desk. Haughtley blinked rapidly several times, and then stooped down to pick the chalk. His desk chair rolled forward and bumped innocently against him. He hit his head on the desk and Lucas said, “Can I go to the bathroom?”

Lucas barely waited for an affirmative grunt before he was up and out of the room. As he walked through the hallway, he kept one eye out for the hall monitors patrolling for loitering students. He had to stop for a minute and pretend to be struggling to open his locker as Mr. Brentley walked down the hall, a stack of papers tucked under his arm. From the moment Brently disappeared into his classroom, Lucas was on the move. It took him less than two minutes to breeze through the side doors on the 200 hallway.

El was standing outside, and her face broke into a grin when she saw him. Lucas remembered a time where El using her powers like that would’ve made her feel faint, or blood dribble from her nose.

She’d told them about her day-cation in Chicago with her sister Kali, her impromptu training session and the almost-murder session that followed. Mike had been put out that someone had tried to use El that way, but she’d patiently explained that Kali had her own problems to sort through. Growing up like that wasn’t a walk in the park.

Apparently Hop had gotten the full story too, and after much deliberation (and some not-so gentle pressure from Joyce), he’d decided she _did _need to train to get a better handle on her powers. And so, every Saturday, they’d spent a few hours outside helping El harness her abilities. It had been hard, but she’d gotten stronger. They’d had a No-More-Nosebleeds Party.

Lucas gave her a one-armed hug. “Hey, El. Care to tell me what’s going on?”

El hugged him back. “Dustin took one look at the sky this morning and decided school was a no-go.” She stepped back just as Max rounded the corner, a brilliant smile on her face.

“Haughtley has no idea what hit him! He’s yelling at Ruth right now.”

She walked up to Lucas, and in one smooth motion wrapped her arms around his neck and brought him down for a kiss. Lucas smiled into the kiss, pressing closer into Max. For a moment, time stopped. It was just the two of them, the feel of his lips on hers, the warmth of the sun their skin. Gently, he put his hands on her waist and pulled back a little to look into her face. Max was grinning up at him, eyes bright.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself,” she said back.

There was a cough behind them, and just like that time pressed on. Max stepped back from Lucas and he draped his arm over her shoulder. Together, they turned to El.

“And you make fun of me and Mike.”

Max flipped her off, but she was smiling. “Lead the way, daylight’s wasting.”

The three of them set off at a brisk pace to the parking lot. Will was parked next to Lucas’s car. Lucas walked around to the driver’s side and leaned down. Will rolled down the window a smiled at him.

“Nice to see you of class, Lucas.”

Lucas opened his mouth to respond when Dustin cut him off. “No time to talk, it’s already 8:45. I did not waste an hour of my life busting you out of school for you all to chitchat.” He opened the passenger door and clambered out. Lucas straightened up to look at him.

“Lucas, we’re taking two cars because there is no way we’re all going to fit in one car, and I’m riding with you because I don’t want to be stuck with Mike and El for the drive.” 

Lucas blinked at him. “Can you please tell me where we’re going?”

“I’ve decided it’s time for a field trip. We’re going to Indianapolis for the day; it’s gonna be great.”

Lucas nodded. A vague part of his brain wondered if he should be surprised by the how easily he’s agreeing to this. His mother would gladly flay him alive if she knew he was skipping. She always told him that education was invaluable, that people have fought and died for this opportunity and so, no matter what, _he was going to school. _But Lucas had had perfect attendance since starting high school, and when it came down to his friends, this group of people that he would die for without hesitation, a group that might not even be together a few months after they graduate, he could miss a few days of school.

The Party split up, Mike and El in Will’s car and Dustin and Max in Lucas’s car. Lucas checked with Will to make sure he knew where he was going before getting into his own car. There was a moment, right before he climbed into his car, that he felt a prickling feeling on the back of his neck. Lucas, halfway in the car, to look around. There was no one around; there was the school and the empty cars in the parking lot and the tiny bit of forest by the football field, but he saw nothing.

When Lucas got fully into the car, he found Max and Dustin watching him with twin expressions of worry. “Did something happen?”

Lucas started the car. He wasn’t going to let go of this feeling; for a few moments, he’d been sure someone had been watching him. “Nothing happened,” he said. He wasn’t going to forget about this, but he wasn’t going to let it put a damper on his day with his friends. He pulled out of the parking lot and followed Will to the highway.

___________________

Max had been itching for a day like this for a while now. It had been three weeks ago when it’d started, the desire to just not go to school. But then the clouds and rain had hit, and it had been three weeks since they’d seen the sun. And what was the point of skipping school if it wasn’t a gorgeous day? There was something enjoyable about being out with her friends in the sunlight.

So when she’d opened her curtains that morning, and seen the sun coming over the horizon, not a cloud to be found, she wondered if today would be the day. She had been running late when Dustin called, and hadn’t needed any convincing to not go to school.

It was everything she could’ve hoped for. Singing along to music as they drove on the highway, windows rolled down. She felt in tune, connected to the songs on the radio and Lucas drumming his fingers on the steering wheel beside her and Dustin’s intermittent comments to the both of them. There had been a moment when Will’d pulled up beside them, and Max and El had made faces at each other from their respective cars.

It had been a great disappointment when Lucas had turned off the highway and followed Will into the city. The feeling had only lasted a minute; the city had its own fascinating aura. Max squinted up at the buildings as Lucas and Dustin argued.

“Where is he going? We need to park.”

Dustin shrugged his shoulders in an unsure gesture. “Maybe he has some place in mind. I didn’t really have a destination in mind, just a day in the city. I figured we could talk about where we wanted to go when we got here.”

Max leaned back in her seat and let the destination unfold. After a few minutes of driving around, Will turned into a parking deck and Lucas followed. There was only one space available on the first level of the deck, which Will claimed happily. Lucas went up a level, then another before finding an parking space.

“Is something happening today?” Lucas grumbled. They climbed out of the car and descended back down two levels to meet up with the others. Max saw them first; Lucas and Dustin were arguing about something behind her. Max watched, bemused, as Mike stretched like they had been driving for hours. Will leaned against his car, arms crossed, with El leaning next to him in a matching posture.

If this was a race,” Will teased, “then we would’ve won.”

Lucas cut off his conversation with Dustin to answer Will. “You’re lucky that I’m not dumb enough to race on the highway. But if I was, you would’ve lost.”

Max came to stand in front of the trio, Lucas on her side. She blinked, then looked around for Dustin. She found him a few feet away, talking to some poor woman wrangling a toddler into a stroller.

“Who is Dustin talking to?”

The group fell silent, and all turned to stare at Dustin. The mother was saying something, and Dustin nodded, said something that looked like _thank you_. He walked over to the group and scratched his chin, something that looked eerily similar to a gesture Max had seen Hop do a million times.

“Don’t look at me like that, I just wanted to find out what was nearby. Anyway, she said the Art Museum was like a 15-minute walk away. There’s some other stuff nearby, but apparently it all costs money. More money than the art museum. Also, there’s a parade happening sometime today.”

Max turned that over in her head. “So it sounds to me like art museum, lunch, then parade.” Max waited for the considering silence to stop and for the heads to start nodding. And they did, one by one. The only thing was to figure out how to get there. The mother Dustin spoke to had already disappeared from view, but there were several other people moving through the parking garage. The group, in a rapid game of Not-It, selected Mike to be the one to find directions. Max leaned against Lucas on Will’s car and watched as Mike tried talking to one person, who coolly flipped him off, another who didn’t speak English, and finally a frazzled looking man in a suit who had stooped down to pick up the fallen contents of his briefcase. Mike helped the man pick his stuff up, and by the time Mike came back to the group he had secured directions for them.

The Party left the parking garage and stepped into the bright morning sun. They stood there for a moment, letting the city wash over them, an immense noise seldom heard in the suburbs, the mass of people flowing around them on the sidewalk, the dangerous sense of freedom that came along with being somewhere you weren’t supposed to be. Max suddenly, desperately wished she’d brought her skateboard, the gorgeous new longboard Lucas had gotten her for Christmas so she could ride through the chaos.

But she hadn’t brought it, so instead she slipped her hand into Lucas’, leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek, and announced: “I did not come here for us to gawk at some buildings. Let’s go, guys.” She waited for Mike to point out the right direction before heading that way, dragging Lucas beside her. She was determined for this to be a great day, and for it to be one they had to do _everything._

___________________

Will looked up from his sketchbook to see that they’d moved _again. _Except this time, instead of accidental shifting from holding ridiculous poses for too long, they had completely changed the way they were standing, so that they replicated the painting behind them in no way, shape, or form.

“Guys,” Will said, trying his utmost to sound serious, “you can’t keep moving.”

Dustin gasped from his position, laying languidly on the floor. “Will, we’re trying our hardest to be good models for your artwork, and you don’t even take us seriously?”

“Not cool, man,” Will said. He and Lucas were back to back, arms crossed over their chests. Lucas was wearing Mike’s sunglasses. Mike pointed at the painting they were supposed to be replicating. It was a painting of three men in a boat. One was lying down staring directly ahead, as if seeing into Will’s soul. The other two seated on opposite ends, both of them looking at something not pictured.

“Plus,” Lucas added, “that was longer than a minute. The deal was one minute per pose.”

That _had _been the deal. Will had seen today as an opportunity to get his creative juices flowing. Something had stopped up his creative process, something Will suspected to be stress from school or PTSD or whatever the hell else. The pressure of the final year of school was a physical weight on Will, and it was _draining. _Today had been an excellent opportunity to recharge, so he’d brought his backpack with his sketchbook and a few art supplies and El’s wallet (because she saw how his Mom was with a purse and had decided to not let that be her) and had driven to Dustin’s house. 

And it had been _working. _The drive to the city, the walk to the museum (which had taken longer because they’d all decided to stop in random shops along the way. There’d been more than one occasion where they’d taken one look at the price tags on the some of the items and walked right back out of the store). There was a kind of gentle freedom that came with this time with his friends, his _family_, with the buildings towering above them and people rushing past them that made his fingers itch with the desire to draw.

They’d gotten to the museum alright, and their tickets were three dollars and fifty-three cents short of free thanks to their student discounts. After they walked in, a greeter had handed them all pamphlets of the featured gallery and cheerfully announced that “the Spring garden exhibit was now open to all interested parties.”

Max had grabbed El, looked at the boys, said “Later, losers,” and dragged El off to look at the roses with her. Will had side-eyed Mike and was relieved to find he only looked vaguely upset that El was gone. Dustin checked the time on his watch and called after them, “Can we meet back here at 12:30 – 1:0 0ish?”

El had waved over her shoulder, so Will had taken that as an affirmative. Will turned toward the boys. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’m gonna draw some paintings.” The pamphlet had said the featured exhibit was everyday people in the 19th Century, and I’m intrigued.”

The boys had looked at each other, shrugged, and followed Wil into the exhibit. It was a self-guided tour; the room was filled with carefully placed paintings hanging on white walls. People flowed through the room, some only pausing a few seconds for each painting and others lingering so long it became annoying. The first painting Will had noticed was a bar scene; a woman was serving a man a drink while his friend spoke animatedly to him. Will found a soft bench in the middle of the exhibit area.

He pulled his sketchbook out and a few pencils and got comfortable. By the time he’d looked back up, Lucas, Mike, and Dustin were bunched together around the painting, staring at it with rapt attention. . Dustin turned back to look at him, and in a voice almost too loud for a museum, asked, “are you going to draw this one?”

“I was going to. But your big heads are in the way; I can’t see anything.”

The three of them began to protest loudly, but a glare from an old lady with a walker shut them up. They splintered off to wander around, and Will got to work copying lines and facial expressions and the vaguest outline of the bar. He’d just managed to capture the amused expression of the bartender – it had been something particular about the quirk of her eyebrow that’d made it difficult – when a pair of legs stopped beside him. Will ignored whoever it was; they’d make themselves known. And as if they’d read his mind, they leaned down until their face was practically touching his sketchbook. It was Mike.

“You can’t still be drawing that painting,” he said. Will looked at him. For a long time, he’d worried that his friends wouldn’t understand that drawing was his outlet, that it’d become more than a casual hobby a long time ago. But, as with everything else, they’d taken it in stride. Him liking art was probably the least strangest thing that happened to them. So he knew Mike wasn’t asking because he was annoyed; he was genuinely curious.

“Yes, I am still drawing that painting,” Will responded. “There’s a lot of elements, so it’s a challenging.”

Dustin had come up beside him. “It looks good, dude. But you know what looks better?”

Will felt like he knew where this was going. “Please don’t say you.”

“Not me. Us.” He pointed at himself, then at Mike, then at Lucas, who was several feet away, was looking at painting of kids playing on a farm. “Why draw these boring people when we’re right here,” Dustin said. “We can pose as well as any of the people in these paintings.”

Will opened his mouth to argue, but then decided against it. “Okay, how about this: you three pose like the people in the painting and I draw you.”

Mike scoffed. “We can easily do better than them. You’re on.”

Mike turned toward Lucas and shouted his name. Half of the people in the gallery turned to glare at him, and Will snickered as Mike turned beet red. Lucas came over to them, chuckling silently at Mike. When he reached them, Mike and Dustin filled Lucas in while Will flipped to a fresh sheet of paper in his sketchbook

“Hold up, hold up, hold up,” Lucas shook his head. “I don’t doubt our abilities to one-up these boring paintings, but we cannot stand there for twenty minutes while Will draws every detail of us.” He pointed at Will. “You’ve got a minute. Think you can handle that, Buyers?”

Will grinned. A minute was generous. He’d handled shorter exercises in AP Studio Art. This would be easy. He accepted their terms, and the exercise began. The boys spent a minute looking at the paintings and figuring out their poses, and when they got into position Will started drawing.

The first one was difficult. It was like Will had no concept of how long a minute was. The boys held their pose and Dustin only moved his arm to check his watch. Will got Lucas, then Dustin’s outline, then three lines and a circle where Will’s head was supposed to be. Dustin called time, and all of them crowded around Will to look at the end result.

Lucas laughed and pointed at the figure that was supposed to be Mike. “I knew you were skinny, Mike, but _damn._”

Mike shrugged the comments off, but he was grinning. Dustin squinted at himself.

“I have longer eyelashes than that, Will. It’s like one of my best qualities. How could you leave it out?”

Will rolled his eyes. “It _is _only a minute, guys. And you can’t come over after round, we’ll never got anything done. How about you come look at them all when we finish them all?”

Will agreed, and Dustin and Lucas followed suit. From there, it was fast going.

They moved around the gallery, picking random paintings that the boys replicated with varying levels of success. Each time there was a fair amount of fooling around; Will could barely keep a straight face as Dustin and Lucas lifted Mike into the air to replicate some dancers giving a street performance. There were boys playing in a pond, old philosophers teaching a public class, quiet intimate scenes of a family at home. Each new pose Will got better. He felt his concept of a minute solidify, so that he could _feel _how much time he had to draw. By the time Dustin called time, Will was usually finished. By the time they reached the painting, Will was having a great time.

Dustin pulled himself off the floor. “It’s almost 12:30. We’re supposed to meet El and Max back in the entry hall around now.”

Mike took his sunglass back from Lucas. “Knowing those two, they’ll be a little while longer. We have time for one more.”

They looked around the gallery for another piece they could replicate. Will was surprised at the progress they’d made; at this point the 19th Century exhibit was beginning to transition into something new, more modern. This section of the gallery was emptier too; a detail Will found unsettling considering how many people had been in the earlier part of the exhibit with them. Dustin pointed at a painting of a group of soldiers huddled around a table playing cards.

“We haven’t done anything like that,” he said. For Will’s sake, they were trying to come up with a variety of poses. It was true that they hadn’t done something like that yet. Will walked over to the nearest bench and let them figure out how they were going to mimic that. It wouldn’t take them more than a minute or two, but Will took this time to appreciate where he was. The museum was beautifully designed, allowing sunlight to filter in and opening up the space. Everyone there seemed to be having a wonderful time, as well. There was a father and his son, whispering to each other about an abstract painting on the wall; an elderly couple moving peering at the small descriptions on the wall; a woman dressed in black who was… looking at him?

Will blinked at her, and she turned away, suddenly focused on the painting of a girl in a field of daffodils before her. Will glanced at the boys, wondering if they’d noticed, but they were busing positioning themselves. Will was too familiar with coincidences to not mark this down as odd. He looked down at his sketchbook and saw after a few moments the woman’s attention had turned back to him. The skin on the ack of his neck prickled, and Dustin called out, “okay start!”

Will started to draw, first taking a moment to observe the boy’s positions in a circle on the floor, each one mimicking the focused expression of the soldiers in the painting, each one holding some imaginary hand of cards. Will noticed the change on Mike first; his expression had been one of engagement, but his eyes had shifted around the gallery, observing something Will couldn’t see, and suddenly, subtly, the look had dropped off his face and been replaced by a poker face. Lucas’s body language changed; it had been the lazy confidence of the soldier putting down a card he’d known would win, but now it was tense, and his position had shifted slightly, so that if he would be ready to spring up, if need be. Dustin’s jaw was clenched, and his eyes were constantly flicking to his watch, as if he was waiting for the time to be up and didn’t want to call it early. Will stopped drawing.

“Time,” Dustin whispered, and all at once, several things happened. The woman in black had a walkie talkie in her hand and started towards them; the elderly couple had taken the nearest exit hostage, standing in front of it and watching them intently; the father and son had mysteriously vanished, and in their place two more people in black had appeared. Will flipped his sketchbook closed as Mike, Will, and Dustin began to move back the way they came.

Will strode towards them. “The only way out is back through the gallery; those two old people are covering the exit in here.”

The woman in black was a few steps away now. She’d put the walkie talkie away.

“There might be more people back that way,” Dustin whispered.

It didn’t matter, Will realized. Either way, they needed to move, and they need to do it now. And they needed to find Max and El; and the only way to that was to go back the way they came. They looked at each other, Will nodded, and then they bolted back the way they came.

The woman shouted something at her compatriots, and then the chase was on.

__________________

El was grateful for a lot things. Her new life with Hop and Joyce and all the others, her wonderful boyfriend, her friends, her _family. _She was also grateful for a break from the tedium of school, for standing under a bright sun on a perfect day, looking at rows of flowers so vibrant it made her eyes hurt. To her left, Max swatted at a bee.

“It’s not gonna bother you,” El told her.

Max’s glare had no heat behind it. “Look, you never know. I was stung by a bee once. It hurt like hell.”

El smiled. “I’ll protect you,” she said, and even though it was a small thing in that moment, Max versus the bee, El knew she meant it wholeheartedly. Max was her sister, a wonderful breath of fresh air when she’d spent too much time with the boys. It was always refreshing when it was just the two of them, El and Max versus the world.

El spotted a bench nestled among a row of flowers bursting with purple. She wrapped her arm around Max’s and tugged her along. Max might be the tomboy-est tomboy of them all, but even she could be charmed by ‘girly’ things like flowers. When Max had dragged them away, they’d first veered off into stairs that led to a balcony where they could view the exhibit from above. EL had been delighted to see that the flowers had been intricately laid out so as to mimic the swirls of Van Gogh’s _Starry Night._An ocean of vibrant flowers spread out in front of them, and El could imagine getting lost in them. El and Max stood there whispering to each other in quiet reverence for a while before Max hooked her arm in El’s and dragged to her get up close and personal. They’d spent a bit of time roaming around exhibit, the two of them pausing to smell or read the descriptions or stare at the hedge sculptures.

El guided Max to the bench and together, they sat down. Max leaned back and stared up at the sky; El did the same. She appreciated the rays of sun shining down on her; it had been _weeks_since she’d seen the sun.

“You know,” El said, turning towards Max. “I’m glad you brought me out here instead going through the gallery with the boys. We didn’t exactly skip school to spend the day inside looking at paintings.” El frowned. “Nothing against the paintings,” she added, as an afterthought.

Max closed her eyes and nodded. “Of course, of course, but it’s too nice to spend all day cooped up inside. We gotta breathe.”

El looked around the garden. There were families meandering around, children yelling, couples holding hands and whispering quietly to each other. The walls of the museum, stark white against the blue sky, towered above them all.

“Do you ever wonder,” Max whispered beside her, “about what the future’s gonna be like? I mean, it always seemed so far off, y’know? But now we’re staring it in the face and I feel like there’s just so much. So much uncertainty. I don’t wanna lose any of you.”

El did wonder. Sometimes, when she woke up late at night in a cold sweat and couldn’t find sleep again, she wonders about what would happen to them five years, ten years down the line. Where would everybody be? Would they be happy? …Would they still be friends?

El sat up and stared hard at Max until she cracked one eye open to look back at her. “You know what I think? I think we have been through too much to let our experiences fade away. I think we’re going to be friends for a _very _long time, and even as we grow old and things change, the Party will still be the Party. I refuse to let anything happen to any of us.” El took a breath. “You guys gave me the chance to be a part of a family, and I won’t let that go.”

Max had opened both eyes and was looking at her gratefully. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I still don’t really know what I wanna study, or even do with my life, but if I’ve got you guys, it’ll be fine.”

El smiled. “Of course you will be.”

They sat there a few moments longer, enjoying each other’s company and soaking up the sun.

A young man walked by, probably no more than twenty-six. He was dressed in all black, with the exception of the brown leather watch around his wrist. El suddenly remembered Dustin shouting at them, something about meeting up at 12:30.

“Excuse me,” El said. He looked over at them, and a shadow passed over his face, so brief that El wondered if she’d seen it. Beside her, Max sat up, her attention on the man. El glanced at her for a second, and from the guarded expression on Max’s face that she’d seen it too.

“I was just wondering if you could tell us the time.”

The man glanced between the two of them before checking his watch. “12:23,” he said.

El smiled at him. “Thank you.” She turned to Max, but the man didn’t move.

Max scowled at him. “Thanks,” she said to him, “but that’s all we needed.”

“Where are you ladies headed?” His posture shifted, his hand falling to his hip, a place where a gun would be hanging if he had one.

“To meet up with my dad. He’s crazy about us being punctual. He’s a cop, y’know?”

Any mention of police was enough to cause anyone to back off. The man stared at El for a moment, but she held her ground. She stared down scarier things. He finally nodded, took a step back, then another, and then he was on his way.

Max watched him walk off. “You don’t think something’s wrong, do you?”

El watched him go, too. “if something _was_wrong, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Anyway,” she hopped off the bench. “Let’s go wait for the boys in the meeting spot. I know they thought we weren’t listening, but we totally were. We can tell them about what just happened.”

Max got off the bench and stretched. “Yeah, I guess. We could ask them if they saw anything weird. If not, we can safely assume it was just a guy being a douche.”

Together, they started off towards the museum.

___________________

The walk to the museum took a lot less time than going through the garden initially. This time, they were a little less focused on the flowers, or the joyous feeling of not being trapped in a classroom. There was an undercurrent of something that might be wrong, which gave them a little urgency in their steps.

El walked arm-in-arm with Max. They didn’t say anything as they entered the building. Max had glanced over her shoulder to make sure that the dude wasn’t watching and/or following them.

“I don’t think he’s paying attention to us anymore,” Max whispered.

El wasn’t so sure, but she kept that to herself.

They reached the inside of the museum and both of them relaxed. Upon some unspoken agreement, both of them quietly observed their surroundings. There was no one else dressed like the man in all black; just families trying to decide which gallery they were going to and museum staff walking around, helping anyone who looked vaguely lost.

“Maybe we were just being harassed by a douche,” El told Max. “Everything seems pretty normal in here.”

Max nodded. “And now we’re stuck waiting here for those morons.”

El laughed. “We love those morons.”

“Do we?”

El nudged her. “Yes, we do.”

They stood there, chatting about anything and everything. Max had given El her old skateboard, and now they practiced together, so when would their next session be? Hop and Joyce wanted to go spend a weekend together, have the honeymoon they never did, so where would they go? And when?

“I’m hungry,” Max grumbled. The low curl of hunger had settled deep in El’s gut too; for now, it was easy to ignore. But even still.

“Me too,” El agreed. “Where do you think we should eat?”

Max gave a noncommittal shrug. “As long as it has some non-seafood options I’ll be--”

El grabbed Max’s arm. “Do you hear that?”

Max stopped talking and listened. El closed her eyes and concentrated. It was a vague pounding sound, as if several people were sprinting through one of the galleries. There was the low sound of commotion, like a combination of crashes and yelling.

The sound rapidly grew louder. They weren’t the only ones who heard it; several families kept glancing back at the entrance to the special exhibit, the one about people in the 19thCentury. The little atrium they were in grew silent, until everybody’s attention was on the growing racket coming room the exhibit.

And then the resounding sound of a gunshot rang out.

For a moment, El’s blood ran cold. Her grip on Max’s on arm tightened, and she _knew _that her boys were in that exhibit, _Mike_was in that exhibit, and this couldn’t be happening, they had to be alright, this couldn’t be happening—

And then, miraculously, Mike rounded the corner, a singular focus in his eyes, and El was so relieved to see him she could’ve cried right there. Behind Mike came Lucas, Will, and Dustin. She was so thankful to see them that she almost didn’t hear that they were yelling at them.

“_GUYS, RUN!” _Mike was shouting, and as they exited the exhibit, several people in black rounded the corner after them.

Everything in El suddenly became heavy with anger. How _dare _these people attack her family? As her friends ran towards her, El stepped toward the exhibit and lifted a hand. Over the years, in her practice sessions with Hop and Joyce and everyone else, she had managed to become stronger, to control her power, to _focus _it. She reached deep inside herself let out that anger, just like she’d learned with Kali all those years ago.

The people chasing after them flew back against the white wall, landing with a terrible crashing sound. The gate at the entrance of the museum was pulled up to let visitors inside; El let it come down with a flick of her wrist.

Her friends had paused around her, the boys all panting hard.

“El,” Mike said, his hand suddenly around her own, “we’ve got to go.”

He was right. El glanced at the families cowering around the atrium, the distant of security yelling, and nodded. Together, the Party ran towards the exit of the museum. At one point, they bumped into security guards running towards the exhibits. Max had immediately latched onto one of them and tearfully exclaimed, “It’s terrible! They’re shooting, everyone is scared, we don’t know what to do!”

The man had nodded resolutely, ordered them to get to safety (wherever that was) and pressed on in the direction they came. The Party ran until they were outside of the museum, and then kept running until it had disappeared from view. They ducked inside a gas station to catch their breath, each of them doubled over, panting. The man working behind the counter eyed them all suspiciously.

“Don’t worry,” Dustin said to him in between breaths. “We’re preparing for a marathon.”

El choked out a laugh. She didn’t think that made the clerk any less suspicious of them.

Partially for the sake of appearances, Dustin bought them three Gatorades and a water to share. They stood in the back, near the candy, drinking the Gatorade and water and attempting to catch their breath.

Between gulps of sports drink, Max explained what happened to them while they were in the garden, and Will told them what happened to the boys.

El focused most of her attention on Will, but there was a small part of her focused on the comforting weight of Mike’s arm around her shoulders.

“I don’t think they were shooting at us,” Lucas said.

“Who _else _could they have been shooting at?” Mike asked. “There was no one else in the gallery.”

“I mean,” Lucas said, “I don’t think they were _aiming _for us. No offense to any of us, but I think we were a pretty clear shot. And when we were running, did you see that control panel a little ways off from the entrance of the gallery? I think it controlled the gate to the entrance. _That’s _what I think they were aiming for.”

“Let me get this straight,” Max said. “You think they were aiming for this panel in order to what? Drop the gate down and trap you in?”

“Yes.”

“What would they have done then?”

“I don’t know, but I’m reasonably certain they weren’t aiming to kill us. Why wait all that time to start shooting if that was their goal?”

Nobody answered him.

Mike suddenly stepped forward. “Guys, can we please focus on what our next plan of action is? We can’t stay in a random gas station forever. Chances are, there are more people coming and they will probably find us. I think we need to go home.”

Silence settled over the group. El turned Mike’s words over in her mind. Going home was probably the sensible thing to do, the _smart _thing to do, what with some shady organizations trailing after them, and one of the golden rules was _don’t be stupid. _But the day had been so lovely, and the idea of cutting it short was unappealing.

“Look. I think that going home would be the sensible thing to do,” Max said, nodding in Mike’s direction. “But, we deserve a day like this, where we get to be normal teenagers and be dumb and skip school and have a good time. I’ve been having a great time with you all, and I really don’t want it end just because some assholes think they can corner us.”

El was not at all surprised at Max’s declaration. Max’s determination and boldness was something she admired about her. And she knew, based on their short conversation earlier in the garden, that Max wanted to stay, to spend a day in the city with her friends while they were all still in the same place.

Lucas was looking at Max with something unidentifiable in his eyes. “I agree with Mike. We can’t just stay here like sitting ducks. I refuse to believe that we’ve outrun them and that we’re safe. I think we should leave, but if we decide to stay, we need to be on guard at all times. No messing around.”

“So what is your vote?” Mike asked. El knew it was for clarity’s sake.

“I vote we leave.”

“Max?”

“Stay.”

“Dustin?”

El watched Dustin as he shifted on his feet. Dustin did a good job hiding whatever it was he was feeling, but the way he held his shoulders stiff by his ears and his careful expression told El he was trying hard not to be disappointed. Perhaps the day wasn’t going quite like he wanted. It _had _been his idea, after all. Behind them, the bell of the door to the gas station rang. A frazzled looking woman in a business suit walked right up the cashier, not sparing them a second chance.

Dustin eyed her warily. “I say we stay. But if anything else happens, we gotta go back.”

Mike nodded. “Will?”

“I say we stay. I mean, yeah it’s pretty bad that whoever these people are found us, but frankly, we’ve faced things that were more terrifying than that. And I mean, we’re not stupid. We can keep our guard up; we can protect ourselves. So yeah, I say we stay.”

Mike stared hard at Will, like he was turning over what Will’s word in his head. Then he looked at El, and like always his eyes softened when he looked at her. “What about you, El?”

El looked around at the group. She knew Lucas and Mike were both concerned for everyone’s safety. But she agreed with Will and Max. They had all been through more harrowing experiences, and most importantly, El wasn’t going to let any of them get hurt. They would watch out for each other, no matter what.

“We stay,” she said, and that was that.

___________________ 

Secretly, a large part of Lucas was glad that they had decided to stay in the city. He highly doubted that they would manage to spend the rest of the day peacefully, and fully expected something to go wrong within the next few hours, but that notion aside he had been having a good time. And he did have faith in his friends. They weren’t dumb enough to let their guard down _again._

So after they decided to stay, they decided to eat.

“I don’t know about you all,” Will had said, “but all that running made me hungry.”

“I was hungry since before we left the museum,” Max grumbled.

They had decided to go find somewhere to eat, somewhere that would sit a group of six people without a reservation, somewhere inconspicuous, and apparently somewhere that didn’t serve seafood. Given the following criteria, they weren’t going to be picky about the type of food it served.

They’d left the gas station together, and the early afternoon sun and bustle of people heading to lunch on the street made the events of the morning seem far off. They had happened, but it felt like it would be easy to let it fade into the long-ago distance. They walked in the opposite direction of the museum, Mike and El at the front, Dustin and Will in the middle, Lucas and Max in the back.

Lucas was on guard from the moment they’d left the gas station, keeping one wary eye out for anyone who looked too long in their general direction. But gradually, the longer they walked around, the more he started to relax. Max slipped her hand into his, and Mike fell back to argue with him about the merits of making a Lord of the Rings movie and the pressing danger of their situation quietly slipped away.

Eventually, Will pointed at something. “How about there?”

There was nothing but a nail salon.

“The Nail Salon?” Max asked. She was giving Will the _are-you-mentally-okay_stare.

“No, not the nail salon, look at the sign.”

There was a sign on the side of the building, _Bobby’s Gourmet BBQ upstairs! _A metal arrow pointed up a rickety flight of stairs.

“If that’s not suspicious, I don’t know what is,” Mike said.

“What is gourmet barbecue?” El muttered.

“She’s got a point. What does that even mean?” Dustin said. “It’s probably like, expensive barbecue sauce or something.”

“Look,” Will said. “It’s out of the way, kind of hidden, and who would expect a group of teenagers to eat in a _gourmet barbecue _restaurant?”

“Let’s try it,” Lucas said. “We’re being adventurous, right? Granted, nobody makes better BBQ than my dad, but still.”

Lucas strode forward and walked up the stairs, and the rest of the group followed.

The inside was not like the outside.

The restaurant was something out of movie; there were tall windows letting in natural light, tablecloths and artful place settings, an actual, dazzling chandelier hanging above the main dining area. Whatever the price point was for this restaurant, Lucas knew their group couldn’t afford it. A few well-dressed patrons sat in the restaurant, talking quietly while eating carefully arranged dishes of ribs and baked beans.

Lucas turned to glare at Will.

“I didn’t know it was gonna be like _this_,” Will whispered.

“May I help you?” the seater asked. His eyes passed over the Party, assessing each member as though trying to decide if they should be thrown out or not. Lucas suddenly felt underdressed. Dustin pushed forward.

“Hello, good sir, we would like to dine-in. Table for six, if you don’t mind.” He said, in his best high-brow voice. It took all of Lucas’s self-control not to burst out laughing. The server stared at all of them for a minute, and then gathered up menus and led the way.

They ended up in at a table near the front of the restaurant. Lucas glanced between the table and the door to the restaurant, only a few feet away. He scowled. If anyone looking for them walked in, they would be spotted within seconds. Lucas turned to ask for a different table when Mike grabbed his arm.

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ll keep an eye on the door. Besides, it’s a faster get-away.”

Lucas stood there for a moment, considering, before nodding. The Party settled around the circular table. Lucas and Mike sat facing the door so that they keep an eye on people coming and going.

A waiter came by, announced that his name was Brandon, and asked for drink orders. Lucas flipped to the back of the menu, did his best to contain a cringe when he saw the price of soda, and calmly ordered a water.

There was something akin to judgement in Brandon’s eyes as he went around the table and everyone ordered water. When he disappeared, they all burst into laughter.

“Dudes,” Lucas gasped, between bouts of laughter, “Can we afford this place?”

“Absolutely not,” El said.

Lucas took a moment to recover and then began to look through the menu. It was just as ridiculous as the beverage options.

“Why is half of this in French? It’s barbecue,” Dustin said.

“It’s just fancier that way,” Mike replied. He was squinting at his menu, his expression hinting at deep confusion.

“Y’know,” Will said, folding his menu and laying it down like he’d decided what he wanted to order, “I’m glad Hop forced us to join a sport.”

Everyone around the table started chuckling. Lucas remembered that conversation well. It had been after a particularly vicious resurgence of the demodogs. It had snuck up on them, and the result had been two injured legs on the behalf of Max and Dustin. They had a debrief in the living room of the Byers’s house after the problem was fixed, where Hop did a general check on all of them and made sure everyone was on the same page. Hop had taken his position in front of the group and let out a tired sigh.

“I’m going to need you all to join a sport,” he said. The room had erupted in protests, but Joyce had shushed them all.

“I don’t want to hear it. The fact of the matter is, you all need to be able to rely on more than just adrenaline to outrun whatever’s coming at you. I don’t… I don’t know what I’d do if something worse than broken legs happened to you,” he said. The room burst out into _awws _and _you care about us_, and that had been the end of that discussion.

“I think we could’ve made it out of the museum without spending two hours after school at various sports practice every day,” Mike said.

“We totally could’ve, but it was nice _knowing _we definitely could make it, and not be absolutely exhausted after,” Dustin pointed out.

Everyone agreed. It was easy, Lucas realized, to get swept up in the conversation. It was easy to focus on Dustin’s moaning over the upcoming biology final and the group’s summer plans and El’s quiet but steady commentary and Max’s sly smiles at him from across the table.

At some point, Brandon came back and everyone ordered, some iteration of the cheapest things on the menu. Brandon was totally judging them. But that was a small thing to ignore when Will was talking about his final pieces for his AP Art exam or when Dustin pulled them into a discussion of X-men comic that had been released.

The food came and no one was more pleasantly surprised that it was great than Lucas. He’d ordered a quarter rack of ribs with a side of baked beans and it had been plated pretentiously but it was so, _so, _good. It was when everyone was nearing the end of their meal that a man walked into the restaurant. He glanced around, and Lucas watched as his eyes glazed over the Party, just a little too smooth for it to be casual. The man stepped forward and spoke to the server. The server started to lead him to a table, but the man asked him something. The server spun around and led the man to a table right by the Party’s.

Lucas nudged Mike, ready to warn him, but was relieved to find that Mike was not-so-subtly scowling at the man. “Tell El,” Lucas whispered.

Mike leaned close to El and whispered something to her. El valiantly did not look over her shoulder, instead nodding at Mike and patting his hand.

“I think it’s time for us to head out,” Mike announced to the table in a low voice.

The table quieted down. Lucas jerked his head in the direction of the man, who was now quietly reading his menu. Everybody glanced at him, then back at Lucas.

“Are you sure he isn’t just another patron?” Max whispered.

Mike nodded. “We’ve been keeping an eye on the door. He’s different than everyone else that’s come in here. I can’t explain it.”

“You all didn’t see it, but like, he was looking around for us, and tried really hard to make it seem like he wasn’t.” Lucas said.

“If you’re right, then we need to hurry up and pay,” Dustin said.

“Hello!” said a voice behind them, and the whole table jumped.

Lucas turned around to see someone who was most definitely _not_their waiter standing next to their table. This man was dressed in the uniform the rest of the waiters wore, but there was something not quite right, from the hastily scrawled name tag to the rest of his appearance. It was like he had rushed to get dressed. There were no pens or straws tucked into the pocket of the apron he wore, no small notepad, just him. 

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’ll be taking over for Brandon, something personal came up. I’m Henry, and I was wondering if everything is good over here?”

“We’d like the check, please,” Lucas said. Panic flashed briefly in Henry’s eyes, but he nodded. “Of course, um, all together?”

“Yes,” Lucas said. There was no way they had time to figure who was paying for what.

“Okay, I’ll be right back!” Henry spun on his heal and stalked off. The man at the other table had stopped pretending to look at the menu and was now watching them openly.

“Do we have time to wait for the bill?” Dustin whispered. “We can’t pay if we’re dead.”

“No one’s going to die,” El said.

On Max’s left, Will stood up. “We don’t have all day to talk about it,” he said, his voice low. “We’ll go now and feel bad about not paying later.” He looked at all of them for a moment longer before heading to the door. The group stared at him after a moment, but at the other end of the table El rose too. “He’s right,” she said simply, and followed after him.

That was enough for Lucas and the rest of the Party, and so they rose and followed after Will and El. Will was walking through the door when Lucas heard the too familiar sound of the safety coming off a gun.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.”

Everyone froze, Will’s hand clenching the doorknob. Lucas was not surprised at the fear and anxiety swirling low in his stomach, but he was surprised by the sudden surge of annoyance. Why couldn’t they have _One. Day. Off. _Without some type of interruption, interdimensional or otherwise?

“Turn around.”

Slowly, they all turned around. Henry the waiter was standing outside the kitchen doors, aiming a gun at them. At some point, the restaurant had emptied out, so that there were only a few terrified patrons cowering in at their tables.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “We just want to talk.”

“If that’s true then why’d you shoot at us in the museum?”

Henry cringed but didn’t lower the gun. “We weren’t aiming for you,” he said.

“And what are you aiming for now?” Lucas shot back.

Henry paused to consider the situation they were in. “This is just a security measure. Your friend certainly did a number on some of the guys.” 

El spoke up. “If you don’t put the gun down, I’ll do a number on you.”

It took all of Lucas’s self-control not to whip around and give her a high-five, because _damn _that comeback was iconic.

The man at the other table rose. “We made an error, one that we apologize for. But you are a tricky bunch to get in contact with. My superiors have tried several times to reach that policeman, or Joyce Byers, or _anyone _that was over the age of twenty-one. No one would talk to us. You’re our last resort.”

“We don’t owe you anything,” Mike growled. Lucas could feel the tension radiating off of him.

“He’s right,” Will said. “We _don’t _owe you anything. So we’re going to walk through this door, and you’re going to let us.”

Will pushed the door open and took one step through the threshold. The man with the gun aimed at Will. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, “but I will if I have to.”

Will looked at him. “Do what you need to,” he said, and walked all the way through the door the same moment the man pulled the trigger.

Lucas froze, and stood, shocked as the man at the other table suddenly jerked forward in front of their group. He listened to the sound of a bullet entering the man, the few horrified gasps of the other patrons, the quiet _oh shit_fall from Mike’s mouth. The man fell to the floor, clutching his arm as blood stained his dark suit darker. From Lucas’s side, he saw El turn her gaze on the gunman, and with a shout launched him into the wall.

“Guys,” Will said, his voice urgent. “We need to leave. _Now._”

“Wait,” Dustin said. He looked down at the man on the ground. He was still clutching his arm, but he’d stopped screaming. “We need to take him with us.”

The group stared at him for all of two seconds before the protests began.

“That’s a terrible idea. He’ll just slow us down,” Mike said.

El was leaning lightly against Will. She looked like she desperately needed to sit down. “There might be back up outside,” she added. Mike took a moment to dash around the restaurant and peer out the windows.

“I don’t see anyone else,” Mike reported. “But just because they’re not in plain sight doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

“It’s a dangerous idea,” Max warned.

Lucas was inclined to agree. There was nothing they could get from this man, except..

“Answers,” he breathed. Dustin pointed at him.

“Someone gets it. We need to figure out what’s going on, and he can tell us. But not here. Help me grab him.”

Lucas helped Dustin haul the man to his feet, and a moment later Mike moved to help him too. With Will in the lead, they left the restaurant behind.

___________________

Dustin fidgeted in the lobby of the hotel, looking anxiously between the reception desk where he was waiting to be helped and the sitting area where Max was pacing and the federal agent bleeding into one of the plush chairs in the waiting area.

“Dustin,” El whispered from his right, “hold still. We’ll figure something out.”

The receptionist called for the next people in line, and a well-dressed elderly couple shuffled forward. There was now one person ahead of them. Dustin looked over at the sitting area again. Max had taken a seat next to Lucas. Will was staring in their direction and when he caught Dustin’s eye he tapped his wrist. _How much longer??_

Dustin shrugged.

“I feel underdressed,” El muttered. Dustin agreed.

After they’d left the restaurant, there’d been a tense moment when they wondered if there was an army of people waiting to intercept them as they left. Miraculously, there had been no one loitering on the street, no long stares in their direction. Their immediate priority had been _get away from the restaurant, _but after they’d had no plans. But they’d been in the open, it felt as though every minute they spent in the street was another minute they were risking their lives. After walking about a block, they stumbled into the first place they saw, which happened to be a glamourous hotel. If Dustin had thought the restaurant was fancy, this was a whole new ball park. The marble floor gleamed, reflecting the sunlight filtering through grand windows and the glowing chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There was an actual, god-forsaken fountain in the middle of lobby, and a man sat in a corner playing gentle music on a piano.

They had gotten stares walking into the hotel, from well-dressed patrons and staff members, but they were more like _what-are-these-gremlins-doing-in-my-hotel _stares than the _kidnap-that-group-of-teenagers _kind of stares. Dustin had been filled with the need to turn right around and find somewhere else, but Mike and Lucas were already heading towards the sitting area. So Dustin, along with El, went to wait in line at the reception desk.

“They’re asking for our reservations,” El said.

Dustin blinked at her. “What?”

“The lady that went ahead of us. They asked her for her reservation. And that couple that went before her, they asked her the same thing. We don’t have one.”

“Shit. _Shit. _Shit. Okay. Give me a second.”

“Next guest, please.” The receptionist called.

Dustin traded a panicked look with El before walking forward. It was going to be fine; he was at his best when he was improvising. Dustin moved slowly, just to give himself time to think. Behind the reception desk, a wall of rolled up towels stack on top of each other extended up towards the ceiling. It was a decorative piece, organized in a pleasing pattern of pale blues and golds.

It all clicked together in Dustin’s head just as they reached the edge of the desk. Dustin, for what was probably the thousandth time in his short life, wished El had telepathy in her arsenal of powers.

“Hello, how may I help you today?” the receptionist asked. The metallic nametag pinned to her uniform read Linda.

“Hello, Linda, we have a reservation. But first, I just have to say, that is a beautiful arrangement of towels.”

El gave him a weird look. He gave her one right back.

Linda coughed. “Oh, uh. Thank you very much, sir. And your last name is..?”

“What would you do if they fell down?” Dustin pressed on. Linda was staring at him, but Dustin didn’t mind it. This was not meant for her. El would get it.

“Excuse me?”

“What would you if they fell down? The towels. Off the wall. Seems like it would be a hassle, very _distracting._” He stressed the last word, and El gasped.

Linda laughed nervously. “I’m sure it would be an issue, but that wouldn’t happen. We’re very careful about these things—”

The towels exploded off the wall, cutting Linda off. Dustin beamed at El, who smiled tiredly back at him. There was a dribble of blood coming from her nose, which was never a good thing. She was getting tired quickly. El snagged a napkin from the desk and wiped her nose with it.

Linda and two other receptionists were scrambling to get things under control. Dustin watched as Linda instructed the other two to please try and organize while she went to get someone. She took off down a hallway, paused, and looked at Dustin. “Just a moment, sir,” She said, and disappeared.

Dustin looked around to find that no one was watching him, that all the attention was on the pandemonium of the towel incident. There was a clock on the far wall that read 3:07, and Dustin stored that information in the front of his mind. “Keep an eye out,” he whispered to El, and slipped around the counter to look into Linda’s reservation book, for any time before three o’clock. Thankfully, the reservation book was well-organized; it was legible and easy to follow. Most of the reservations had been filled, but there was one from 10:30 that hadn’t been filled, for someone named Abe Frohman.

El coughed, and Dustin slipped around the counter in time to see Linda rounding a corner with another person. Her name tag read Georgia.

“I know you’re kind of swamped with,” Dustin made a vague gesture toward the towels. “But I’d really like to get into my room.”

Georgia smiled. “Linda, please help start the cleanup. I’ll take of Mr…?”

Dustin smiled. “Frohman. Abe Frohman.”

Georgia stared at him. “Abe Frohman.”

“Yes.”

“_You’re _Abe Frohman.”

Dustin glanced at El as if to say, _can you believe this chick? _“Yes, I’m Abe Frohman.”

“The sausage king of New York?”

Dustin almost let the smile slip off his face. Almost.

"I’m Abe Frohman Jr. My father made the reservation on my behalf. Is there a problem here?” Dustin said.

Georgia stared hard at Dustin, and he matched her gaze. After staring into the mullet of a Demogorgon, a suspicious manager was easy to handle. Georgia gave up after a moment and turned to El. Whatever she had to say died on her lips, and she frowned.

“Are you alright? You’re bleeding,” she said.

El looked at the receptionist, pondered something for a moment, and then collapsed. Dustin caught her before she hit the ground.

For a moment, he was genuinely worried. But she squeezed his arm and Dustin realized that she was a genius. Nothing like a little external pressure to what they needed faster.

“Is she alright?” Georgia had come from behind the counter. Dustin heard footsteps behind him and prayed to whoever was listening that one of their friends was not coming over. He just needed a few more seconds.

“No, she clearly needs rest after the trying day we’ve had. If I have to spend another _minute _in this godforsaken lobby I am going to sue this hotel within an inch of its life. If I don’t have the key in my hand in the next _thirty seconds _you’re going to be the first person who hears from my attorney,” Dustin snapped at her. Georgia’s eyes grew wide, but she nodded at him and vanished.

El cracked an eye open and looked at him. She huffed out a laugh, and Dustin chuckled right along with her. He looked back at the rest of the Party, to find all of them watching him. He gave them a thumbs up and a kind of be-ready-to-go gesture.

“Help me sit up,” El murmured.

Dustin helped her as Georgia came back.

“Thank goodness you’re awake,” Georgia said. She passed Dustin the key. “It’s... it’s the penthouse, sir.” She told him. Dustin nodded at her, but she didn’t move, opting instead to linger. Dustin glared at her until she got the message and went back to the towel clean-up effort.

Dustin helped El stand, and they made it to the elevator just as the rest of the Party arrived. El was leaning just a little bit too heavily on Dustin for it to be an act. Mike’s eyes were intent on her as they approached, and when they arrived he silently slipped to her side.

Dustin jangled the keys in front of the group. “We got the Penthouse, guys,” he said. The elevator pinged open behind them. Lucas gruffly led the agent onto the elevator, and everyone else followed after.

Max pressed the button for the penthouse, and Dustin studied the man they rode up. He looked, frankly, not as bad as Dustin assumed he would. His hand was wrapped tightly around the wound, and most of the color had drained from his cheeks, but he seemed, for the most part cognizant of what was happening.

“Let me ask you something,” Dustin said, as the elevator doors slid open and the group stepped through. Dustin passed Max the key to the room before continuing.

“Why haven’t you tried to escape yet? I bet you could manage it, even with your arm like that.” Will shot him a look that said _don’t give him any ideas._

The man didn’t say anything, but Dustin saw his eyes flit nervously to El and then away, and that was all the answer Dustin needed. They walked inside the penthouse, and Dustin took a moment to admire it: tall windows and glass doors leading to a balcony, one of the largest TVs he’d ever seen, and a small maze of rooms that, upon brief exploration, turned out to include an office, a massive bathroom, and a walk-in-closet.

Max stepped out of the office with the rolling desk chair and looked at the federal agent. “Sit,” she ordered.

The man scoffed but sat down heavily. Max glanced around the room, and her gaze landed on something by the window.

“Guys,” she said. “help me with the curtains.” Dustin watched as his friends got to work pulling the curtains down. Instead of helping, he kept one eye on the federal agent and another on the conversation between Mike and El.

“If you need to rest for a few minutes, you can go ahead. We can just move the interrogation to the office or the closet. It’s massive in there,” Mike told her.

“What if something happens to you?” El asked. She pressed her hand into his cheek, like it was just the two of them in the world.

Mike moved his head and kissed the inside of her palm. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he said, before rising. “Take a nap, okay? Hopefully this won’t take long.”

“Are you two gonna help or what?” Lucas snapped. He was currently tying the man’s feet together with some sort of complex knot.

Dustin pushed off the wall and walked over. “Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. Mike came to stand by his side, and the five of them managed to tie the man to the chair with minimal jolting of his injured arm. They wheeled him to the closet, turned the light on, and regrouped in the office.

“So,” Mike said. “What’s our plan of action?”

Dustin rummaged through the desk until he found what he was looking for: a pen and a notepad. “Well, it all depends on what we wanna know.”

“We want to know who they are. We’ve kind of just assumed they’re with some government agency like the FBI or CIA, but they could be anyone.” Max said.

“I want to know how long they’ve been watching us,” Will said. “Do you remember, in the restaurant, when he’d said they’d reached out to Mom and Hop, and even Jonathon, Nancy, and Steve? And we were like the last resort or something?”

Dustin wrote that down.

“I think what’s most important,” Mike said, “is to find out what they want from us. That guy had also said he didn’t want to hurt us. And in the museum,” he looked at Lucas. “You said you thought they weren’t trying to shoot us. If they’re not trying to take us out, then what?”

“Maybe they’re trying to stop us?” Max offered.

“Stop us from doing what? The only crime we seem to have committed is knowing the truth about what’s going on, I dunno, behind the curtain, or whatever.” Dustin said.

“We won’t know until we go in there and find out,” Will said.

“He’s right,” Dustin said. “On the list, I’ve got who they are, how long they’ve been watching us, and what they want. Am I missing anything?”

Everybody shook their heads.

“Then let’s get cracking,” Dustin said.

___________________

John Kelzer’s day, if he was being totally honest, was _not. going. well. _It was actually going pretty shit. It had started off easy enough, with a morning debrief and assignments. He hadn’t been running point on the operation, he wasn’t even third in command. But he was high up enough that he had his own little team, a group of five people tasked with security.

John had sat with the other team leaders, at 8:15 in a dreary office outside a small town called Hawkins, Indiana, and watched as a man he’d never seen before from a government department he’d never heard of passed around manila folders with classified stamped across the front.

As John flipped through the photos of a bunch of random teenagers, the man, whose name was Cavanaugh, explained that the goal was to intercept and apprehend the targets.

“From a tapped phone conservation, we’ve learned that these people are going to be heading into the Indianapolis today. Under no circumstance,” he said, in a voice that just barely conveyed how tired he was, “should they be hurt. But they must be taken into custody.”

John shared a glance at one of the other leaders, a no-nonsense woman named Margaret. She coughed.

“Sir, all due respect, but…” she paused, as if considering her words. “Why are we targeting teenagers?”

The man had stared hard at her, long enough that she exchanged a nervous glance with John.

“We… made a mistake and tried to replicate something we shouldn’t have.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “We opened the gate and now we need to close it again.”

That didn’t answer Margaret’s question, but John knew that that was all the background information they were going to get.

John went with his team to the kid’s high school and watched them rescue their two friends from Hawkins High before going onto the highway. This was classified as a casual mission, so no armored vehicles and civilian clothes only. Black was the color of choice. A small part of John felt bad; this was clearly a classic senior-year skip day, a much-needed break from the tedium and stress of the final year of high school. Being taken into custody was probably _not _how the targets pictured their day going.

After pulling off the highway, John’s team drove around for a few minutes before being ordered to the art museum to stand guard. And so they did just that. John stationed himself in the front entrance, on a bench just outside and pretended to read the newspaper. He had another one of his subordinates, a new recruit named Alec Osair, posted on the opposite side of the entrance. If John was being honest, it had partly been to keep an eye on Alec; he was a little too trigger-happy for John’s liking. Plus, it was good to have two men covering the biggest exit. His other three team members were scattered; one in the garden exhibit, one in the special exhibit, and in the atrium of the museum.’

He observed the teens walk into the museum, all smiles and laughter. John could imagine that they were filled with the relief of not being trapped in school and the high that came with doing something they shouldn’t have been.

Subtly, after they slipped inside, John let everyone know via walkie talkie where they were.

“Alright,” a voice said from the other side. “please stand-by.”

So for an hour, John stood by. He waited, and waited, and waited for something to happen. Then he received a request for non-urgent back-up; another team needed three more guys to cover the special exhibit. John sent his three team members in the museum as aid and continued to wait.

The first sign that something was off was when a man with a child scooped up in his arms ran out of the museum. John wouldn’t have been alarmed, except that the man didn’t slow down, just kept running and did not look back. He was followed by another person, a woman running like her life depended on it. The trickle picked up as more people ran out, and John exchanged a look with Alec.

“Stay here and keep an eye out for the targets,” He ordered, and then went off in the direction of the commotion. Inside the museum, a throng of people were pushing to be let out. John slipped past them, hopped over one of the ticket desks, and jogged into the main atrium of the gallery. He found find Cavanaugh arguing vehemently with the man in a jacket that read Head of Security and had the museum logo splashed across the front.

John was horrified to find that several agents, including the three he lent out, had been badly injured. He wasn’t even sure that one of them was alive. Unsettled, he tried to find the cause of the injury. There was massive damage to one of the walls leading to one of the exhibits.

“Apparently it was the girl,” one of the agents said to his left. John looked at her.

“What?”

“Apparently it was the girl,” she repeated. “They were shooting at her friends and almost put them through a wall. She didn’t lay a hand on them, though. Telepathic, or some shit.”

Several feelings ran through John. He wanted to know why Cavanaugh hadn’t thought it important to mention that one of the targets had _powers _(was that even possible?). He wanted to know who shooting at a group of kids, and why. John looked at the injured people again, suddenly not as sympathetic as he was before. John’s walkie talkie crackled to life. Alec’s voice spilled through.

“Boss, I’ve got an eye on the targets, they’re running away from the museum with the rest of the crowd. Follow?”

John watched as Cavanaugh turned away from the head of security.

“Everyone,” he said through gritted teeth, “take your teams and spread out, all directions. I rescind my previous instructions; do whatever it takes to bring them in.”

John raised the walkie to his lips. “Follow them,” he said.

And he left the museum.

  
John regrouped with Alec across the street from a nail salon.

“What am I looking at here?” John asked.

“They went inside,” Alec said.

“…the nail salon?”

“No sir, not the salon.” Alec pointed across the street. “That barbecue place.”

John scowled at the gourmet barbecue sign. He sincerely doubted a bunch of teenagers would select a place like that to eat. Alec must’ve seen the look in his eyes, because he said, “I know what you’re thinking. But I watched them walk in about twenty minutes ago now.”

“Okay.” John took a steadying breath. “Okay. We need to corner them. We’ll give them time to eat, let their guard drop. Then, we’ll bring them in. We’re gonna need to speak to the manager of the restaurant. Think you can be a convincing waiter?”

Alec rose from his seat. “I think I can. But I gotta know: is it true?”

“Is what true?”

Alec’s intense gaze landed on John.

“There was some buzzing on the radio. Is it true one of the girls took out an entire team with her mind?”

John did consider lying for a moment. But he knew that lying did not foster trust in his team, and that wasn’t something he could risk.

“Yeah. Yeah, she did.”

There was a disturbing looked in Jimmy’s eyes. “So these aren’t actually harmless teenagers. They could take both of us out in a second if they wanted to.” John wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He was following Alec’s train of thought, and he didn’t like where it ended.

“They probably could, but we’re not going to give them a reason to. I know Cavanaugh said do whatever it takes to bring them in, but we’ve gotta be cautious here. I don’t think pulling a gun will be necessary.”

Alec’s eyebrows had climbed high onto his forehead. “Cavanaugh said whatever it takes?”

John realized that Alec had had no idea about this change in order, and something in Alec’s tone told John that he shouldn’t have told Alec that. But Alec was already on the move, crossing the street. John shook off the cold feeling and followed after Alec. It couldn’t be that bad, right? They were just some teenagers.

And things had been going smoothly.

Restaurant managers had been talked to, bribes had been paid, clothes had been changed, and all the while the targets had stayed right where they were. John had not expected them to notice him walk into the restaurant, through the front door in civilian clothes. He had not expected them to decide to get right up and leave, bill forgotten, and though he had not expected Alec to pull a gun on them, John had to say that he wasn’t surprised.

He had intervened, but it hadn’t been enough. Instead of diffusing the situation, he’d ended up being used as a human shield, and then taken hostage by a bunch of _kids. _And now he was tied up in a closet in a random hotel room, bleeding from a gunshot wound in his arm. He was 40 percent they were going to try and interrogate him, and 60 percent sure they were going to leave him locked in the closet.

John listened to the footsteps in the hallway, watched the door open to reveal the group of angry teens, and closed his eyes. His day, it seemed, would not be getting any better anytime soon.

___________________ 

Will didn’t like interrogations. He’d sat through too many of them, with doctors and special agents and that one time he’d been possessed by the Mind Flayer. He remembered the harsh lighting, the lingering, acrid smell of bleach. It had been the battle of his life, hanging on to every word his mom said, Jonathon, Mike, while fighting to tell them the solution to their problems.

And so, as Will leaned against the wall of the makeshift interrogation room, a bottle of whiskey clutched in one hand and sheets they had cut into strips in the other, Will felt some sympathy for the man. He was staring at them, not exactly angry, but not pleased either.

“Do you promise,” Lucas was saying, “to not move while we free your arm? We want to help you, but you have to let us.”

The man grumbled a bit, but finally nodded.

“Say it,” Lucas said.

Will wondered if the man knew how serious agreeing to a promise was for them. Considering that everyone would be happy to leave his arm the way it was if he said no, he sure hoped so.

“Yes,” he said. “I promise.”

Will let and Max and Lucas figure out how to free the man’s one arm, while Dustin came to stand in front of him.

“First and foremost,” Dustin said. “Do you have a name?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“Smith.”

“Is that your real name?”

The man scoffed. “Of course not.”

Dustin scowled at the man. “I guess it doesn’t matter, then. It’s not like we ever want to see you again after this. I guess the more important question is, who are you working for?”

Smith raised an eyebrow.

“C’mon dude. You have to realize that we’re not professional interrogators—”

“Torture specialists,” Max threw in. She had succeeded in freeing his arm.

“Yeah torture specialists. We’re a bunch of teens trying to enjoy one of the only skip days we’ve taken, and you come along and ruin it.”

“By shooting at us,” Mike said.

“And stalking us across the city,” Lucas said.

“And generally ruining our good day,” Will said.

“Alright!” Smith snapped. “I get it.”

“So then you also get why you should help us. We never asked for this… harassment? Harassment.” Dustin looked back down at his notepad. “We’ve got a few pressing questions, as I’m sure you can imagine, so would you be so kind as to answer them?”

“No.”

Will watched Max gesture at him until he realized she was asking for the alcohol. He passed it to her and did not miss the malicious glint in her eye as she poured a generous amount of alcohol over the man’s arm. Smith shouted and jerked away, but Lucas held his arm in place while Max finished disinfecting the wound. Will passed her the cloth they had cut up, and Max neatly wrapped up Smith’s arm. By the time she stepped back to admire her handiwork, Smith was blue in the face from the pain.

Lucas re-tied Smith’s arm as Dustin started speaking again. “Since you won’t cooperate, I guess we’ll have to change tactics. Will!” Dustin pointed at him. “You try.”

Will pushed himself off the wall and switched places with Dustin. They’d decided on this before they started the interrogation. If Smith wasn’t going to be direct with them, they’d try different interrogation strategies on him. Will offered to be the first person to try, on the strategy of relatability.

“Look. I’ve been where you are—”

“Tied to a chair by a bunch of children?”

Will crossed his arms. “Not by a bunch of children, no. But I have been sitting where you are, about to be interrogated, with no chance of escape. I hated it, every minute of it. The worst part about it was, I didn’t have a choice. I was barely in control of myself, fighting for my _life _to relay a message to my family. The difference here is, you have a choice. If you think we like having to do this, you’re wrong. All we want to know is why we can’t be left alone. We’ve done nothing wrong . We’ve done nothing to you, or to anyone except save the world a few times. Is that a crime? Is that an excuse for hunting us down like we’re not ordinary people trying to live our lives?”

The room descended into silence as Will finished. Smith looked distinctly uncomfortable, although Will couldn’t tell if it was because his words had resonated with him or if it was the wound in his arm.

“We… It _did _strike me as weird that the… that it was a bunch of children we were supposed to be intercepting,” he began. “And there was just so little information…” Will waited for him to continue, but it seemed the man’s brain had caught up to his words. Will watched him clam up: Smith’s jaw locked shut, and he looked away from Will. “That’s all I’m saying,” he said.

Will waited for a moment, and when Smith locked eyes with him again it was like seeing into the heart of a different, more determined person. That was the gaze of someone whose self-restraint was backed with steel. It overpowered the small part of Smith that Will knew felt guilty for terrorizing kids. Will had no doubt that Smith would not speak again for the rest of the interrogation, and unfortunately that held true.

He didn’t say a single word through Lucas and Max’s good cop bad cop routine, which included a very memorable moment where Lucas had to hold Max back from clocking Smith in the face. Smith hadn’t uttered a single word, but the look of absolute terror that crossed his face as Max’s fist narrowly missed his face was _gold._He wished he’d had one of Jonathon’s camera’s so he could laugh at that expression years later. (Will would later learn that if Lucas had not been holding her back, Max actually would have done it. Will was not surprised.)

Dustin put forth a valiant effort to compliment Smith in hopes that flattery was the way to go, but for his efforts all he received was one unimpressed eyebrow raise. Dustin stared at him for one second, then two, before changing tactics completely.

“I take back what I said. You are literally the shittiest secret agent known to man, okay? A group of _teenagers _managed to take you hostage. You stink.”

“Smooth,” Mike muttered. Max elbowed him in the ribs.

Smith did not bat an eye at Dustin’s barrage of insults, and when it became clear that Dustin was _not _going to run out of insults anytime soon Mike clamped his hand on Dustin’s shoulder and switched places with him.

Will was not sure what tactic Mike was going to use. When they’d settled on what they had wanted to try, Mike had shrugged and said he’ll figure out. He took his place in front of Smith, arms crossed and expression grave.

“I know you’re not intimidated by any of us in the least. And I know it’s because you think none of us will do anything to you.” Mike took a deep breath. “And you’re right. We’re not going to do anything to you. We’re not inclined towards violence and after all, we _are _just a bunch of teens. Nobody in this room is going to hurt you.”

Everyone in the room shuffled uncomfortably. Mike was right, (maybe not in Max’s case) but it still sucked. Will didn’t like the idea that the only way of getting Smith to talk was through violence, and since none of them were willing to hurt him there was no way they’d figure out why they were being followed. Mike pressed on.

“No one in here is going to hurt you,” he repeated. Mike paused to look at everyone in the room, as if he was expecting someone to protest against his next words. It struck Will what Mike was about to say.

“But there is someone right outside this room who would not hesitate hurt you if it meant we were safe. You saw what she did to your men earlier today. She could throw you through a wall without lifting a finger.”

Will watched Smith’s face contort into something between disbelief and genuine fear. He opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. Mike pressed on.

“You’ve been lucky to avoid… _serious _injury so far,” Mike said. He cast a lingering glance at Smith’s bandaged arm. “But if you’d like to stay lucky, you will tell us what you know.”

All of the color had drained from Smith’s face. He looked anxiously from Mike to Dustin, who just shrugged and nodded. Smith licked his lips.

“I…”

Will leaned forward, and from the corner of his eye saw his friends do the same. Smith seemed to be struggling with something, his expression shifting from defeat to anger to uncertainty. Mike glanced at Will, who held up his hand. Further pressure from Mike right now would only end up in a result they didn’t want. Will knew what was happening: Smith was making up his mind, wrestling with the side of himself Will hoped he knew was wrong for harassing a bunch of high schoolers and the side doing his duty to his team of FBI or the CIA or maybe even god-damned _Russians._

Smith looked down, and when he looked up again, his face had cleared of any indecisiveness. He glared at Mike. “I will not,” he spat, “betray my team in the face of baseless threats from twelve-year-olds.”

Looks like duty won.

Mike _tsk_ed at him. “That was your last chance, Smith.”

There was a soft knock on the door. Everyone’s eyes cut to the closet door as it was pushed open and El popped her head in.

“Excellent timing, El. We were just discussing an alternate interrogation method for our friend here,” Mike said.

El looked from Mike to Smith to everyone else. She nodded easily. “Bring him to the balcony.” 

___________________

Max leaned on the railing of the balcony and looked out at the city. Whoever Abe Frohman was, he sure did know how to pick a hotel room. The room was directly above an alley between the hotel and the building over. There was a perfect, sprawling view of the city below them, and now that it was approaching 4 o’clock she could see tiny throngs of people walking on the sidewalk below: mothers taking their children to the park, people in suits walking tiredly to the bus stop or subway, groups of teenagers laughing and joking now that class was out for the day.

Max tried not to feel bitter at that last one, but she couldn’t help it. That was almost them today. That _was _them today. But of course, as usual, weird shit happened to them. Max glared at Smith, who was anxiously looking around the balcony. Will and Lucas were wrapping him up in more sheets (“just to make sure he doesn’t actually die,” Will had told her) while Mike and El stood off to the side talking quietly.

“I hate to make you do this,” Mike murmured. “I’m sorry. We tried everything, though, and he just wouldn’t crack.”

El patted his arm. “It’s alright. You _did _warn him. Plus, I’m feeling better after my nap.”

El _did _look better. The color had returned to her cheeks. She looked less… haggard. Will and Lucas stepped away from Smith, both of them examining their handiwork with a satisfied look on their faces. They nodded at each other.

“All finished.”

Max glanced at the door leading to the balcony. Dustin had pulled her aside after lugging Smith to the balcony and told her, miserably, that he was going to go ahead and call Hopper and let him know the situation. Max had winced in sympathy; she would not want to be on the receiving end of that phone call. If he didn’t hurry, though, he would miss... whatever was about to happen here.

Lucas walked over to her as Will, Mike, and El whispered to each other. He settled on the railing close, but not too close, and mimicked her posture.

“Hey stranger,” he said. “what’s a beautiful lady like yourself doing at an event like this?”

Max pressed her lips into a thin line to resist the urge to smile. She rolled her eyes and turned her attention toward Mike and Will, who were stalking towards Smith.

“Can’t you tell? There’s about to be a show, and I’ve got front row seats.”

Will and Mike each grabbed one of the arms of the chair Smith was tied to, and together they heaved it up onto the railing. Smith had gone from nervous to fully terrified, face ashen and shaking.

“You _wouldn’t_,” he said, his voice quivering. He looked frantically from Mike to Will to the ground, ten stories below them. “This is _murder. _If you push me off this building I will die!”

El stepped forward and glared at Smith. Max was reminded suddenly of the first time she’d seen El, with her _bitchin’_fashion sense and seriousness and anger so concentrated in her eyes that Max’d had been relieved it wasn’t directed at her. El was giving Smith that same intense look, and he wilted under it.

“Listen to me,” she said. “I am not my friends. You followed us, tried to hurt us, and wouldn’t do us the simple curtesy of telling us _why. _They tried the easy was to get you talk, but you refused. So let me make this clear. They did not hurt you, but I will. I am not intimidated by you. I am not scared of you. I am giving you three chances to tell us who you are and what you know. And if you don’t I will not hesitate to let you die.” El stepped closer. “I’ve killed before, and I will do it again. Don’t let me start with you.”

Lucas raised his hands to applaud. Max pushed them down.

El took a step back. “So. Will you tell us who you are and who you work for?”

Smith stared at her for one moment, then two. El sighed. “No answer? Fine. Boys.” El made a carry-on gesture, and Mike and Will pushed Smith over the edge.

Max rushed to peer over the edge of the balcony, everyone else right beside her. They watched Smith get closer and closer to the ground before El threw an arm out stopped his descent. Everyone moved away as El brought him up and over the balcony. Will and Mike moved to grab him again and put him down on the balcony.

Smith looked… _bad. _His face had turned red, his hair was a mess, and he was shaking so badly in the chair Max was worried he would never stop.

“That was chance number one. Let’s try that again. What is your name, and who are you working with?” El asked.

Smith swallowed thickly. Max could tell that he was trying to recover his ability to speak, but El was not messing around.

“Fine,” she said. Mike and Will moved to hoist Smith up again.

“NO! No, no, please.” Smith looked between Mike, Will, and El, panicked. “Just. Give me a second.”

El crossed her arms.

Smith took a deep breath in before continuing. “My—my name is John Kelzer. I don’t. I’m not with any… _specific _government agency. I work with a specialized… group of individuals contracted out by various agencies. My team and several others were sent to… bring you into custody, but nothing more.”

“If the nothing more part is true,” Max growled, “why did you shoot at us?”

“It was supposed to be a casual mission. Each team brought some of the newer recruits along to get them used to field, and it turned out,” he glanced nervously at El, “that this was a lot more difficult than expected.”

“Fine,” Mike said. “But why us? What do you want from us?”

Smith—John shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Max scowled. That was bullshit if she ever heard it. Lucas was frowning beside her, and Will and Mike were wearing twin expressions of doubt. El took a moment to glance at all her friends.

“I refuse to believe you don’t know a single thing about your mission other than the objective,” she declared. Mike and Will glanced at each other before reaching for John’s chair again.

_No! _You don’t understand, that’s how it’s done! For some missions we get more information than others! It’s a need to know basis, you can’t _do this! They barely told us a n y t h i n g!”_ His voice had reached an octave Max had only heard in that Opera tape Will had gag-gifted her on her birthday last year.

Mike and Will had paused, two legs of John’s chair dangling over the edge. Max had heard it too. Lucas hummed beside her.

El raised an eyebrow. “Barely anything is still something. I’ll let you think about it on the way down.”

Mike and Will let go of the chair.

This time, Max didn’t bother watching. When you see one dude thrown off the side of the building, you’ve seen them all. She glanced through the glass doors of the balcony, where Dustin was watching the whole thing with an ear pressed tightly to the phone. His mouth was hanging slightly ajar. Max waved her arm to catch his eye, and then gave him a thumbs up. He gave her a shaky one back.

El was pulling John back onto the balcony when Max looked back over. Will and Mike got a solid grip on the chair and placed it on the balcony.

John promptly leaned over as far as he could in his restraints, turned his head to the side, and threw up. Max looked away. On the one hand, this guy and his team of trigger-happy recruits had followed them through the city, ruined their perfect day, and tried to murder them on two separate occasions. On the other… well. Max didn’t consider herself a bad person, nor any of her friends. They weren’t enjoying this one bit. She looked at Lucas, who was watching John with an openly concerned expression. The others weren’t better off; Will and Mike looked a little ashamed, and even El had taken a step forward as if to help. Max shook her head at her. It sucked that they had to do this, that _El _had to do this, but they still hadn’t gotten the information they needed.

_Two more minutes_, she mouthed. El nodded and when John finished retching and looked over at El, her face had hardened into a mask again.

“That was your second chance,” she said. “I hope you’ve had a chance to think about what they told you.”

John stared wearily at her. Max wished she could run and get him a cup of water. “I told you,” he said hoarsely, “They didn’t tell us much.”

El looked at Mike. He stepped forward, but John started speaking again.

“No, _listen, _please! What they told us didn’t make any sense, something about a mistake, someone opened a gate somewhere and now they want it closed.”

Max gasped softly. A series of memories flashed through her mind: Will, convulsing silently in the field, staring down the gullet of a demodog in the bus in the junkyard, the adrenaline pushing her forward as they sprinted through the Upside Down, the fear that Dustin and Steve were about to die, the nightmares that plagued her for months afterwards. Max felt her breathing speeding up, and her gaze darted from Will’s sunken expression to El, frozen where she stood.

“Hey.”

There was a light pressure on her shoulder. Lucas was looking at her, his face first haunted and second angry.

“People suck,” he told her.

“Yeah,” she whispered. Somewhere far away, Mike let out an impressive string of curse words.

“We fought them off before, and we’ll absolutely do it again.” Lucas took her hands in his, and her looked her right in the eyes. “OK? We’re going to close the gate, graduate high school, and spend the rest of our lives upset that our one day off got ruined. I have faith in us. We’ll be okay, right Mad Max?”

“Right,” Max said. She pulled Lucas down into a tight hug. In that moment, she was very grateful for her beautiful boyfriend. She let him go after a moment and let her gaze drop to the city below them. The grateful expression fell off her face.

“Max?” Lucas reached out to her, but she shoved around him to get a better view. The balcony extended to the side of the building, and when she looked around at the other side she saw a string of people in black, guns glinting in their hands, move swiftly into the building.

“Guys!” She whipped around, and everybody snapped out of their various stages of shock and anger to look at her.

“We have to go. Right. Now.”

___________________

All things considered; Jim was having a pretty good day. He definitely scored some extra points in the dad area by letting El and Will skip school for the day. In all honesty, he hadn’t needed much convincing. He knew they could handle themselves. And that was what he told himself whenever a shiver of worry washed over him. They would be absolutely fine.

It was a relax day at the station. Two people had called in with problems that Jim happily and easily delegated to his deputies. He’d spent most of the morning making rounds in the office before going off to bring Joyce the lunch she’d forgotten at home and secretly purchasing an updated copy of Yellow Pages.

He and Joyce had never gone on a honeymoon; there had never been the time or the money. But now with the raise he’d received from the state and summer vacation hurtling closer he figured it wouldn’t hurt to take a weekend, or a few more days for just the two of them.

The travel agency he’d looked up had been very accommodating, and he spent the later part of the afternoon marking days on his calendar and running costs in his head. He imagined a nice, secluded cabin, looking out on an expanse of water. Maybe close to a town he and Joyce could get souvenirs and go out to eat. The travel agent (he’d forgotten her name) had suggested a cabin on Lake Huron with a view of Canada in the distance.

He was on the phone when the second line lit up on the phone. He stared at it a moment before deciding it could wait.

“—now the flight to Michigan could be a bit of a problem, especially if you really want to go next month,” the agent was saying.

“Uh huh.” Jim stared at the line longer, suddenly aware that he _was _at work and on the clock. He cradled the mouthpiece to his ear, grabbed the receiver and popped his head out of his office door.

“I’d recommend bringing the cost of the flight down by pushing your dates back by a month, which in turn could—”

“Yeah, could you hold on for a minute?” Jim looked to Flo’s desk to find it surprisingly vacant.

“She’s in the restroom,” Callahan said. He was pouring himself what was probably his thirtieth cup of coffee today.

Jim sighed and went back to his desk. “I’ve got a call on line two, could you just give me moment?”

“No problem,” the agent chirped.

Jim switched the line and leaned back in his chair.

“Hawkins Police, you’ve reached chief Jim Hopper.”

There was a deep sigh on the end. “Hey, Chief.”

Jim sat up. “Dustin?”

“Yeah, it’s me. There’s… We’ve got a situation.”

Jim covered the mouthpiece with his hand and took a minute. Why the _fuck_couldn’t things go well for one. Day. All those kids wanted was a single day off. But that was too much like right, wasn’t it? Jim took his hand off the receiver.

“Real quick: are any of you hurt?”

“No.”

“Are you in a secure location?”

“…Secure enough?”

Jim nodded. “Good. Hold on.” He switched lines.

“Hey, I’m really sorry, but there’s an emergency. I’ll call back later. Can I get your name?” Jim grabbed a pen from the pencil holder El had made him.

“Oh! Uh, it’s Tina Humphries. That’s H-U-M—”

“Yup, got it, you’ve been a real help, bye.” Jim switched back to Dustin. “Still there?” No response.

“_Dustin. _Are you still there?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m here. Sorry, there’s a lot going on right now.” Dustin sounded equal parts shocked and worried.

“I need you to focus. Tell me what’s happening,” Jim ordered. “And _please, _just give me the gist of it. You can relay the details in person.”

Dustin took a deep breath and gave Jim the Breakdown: Two Minutes or Less Edition. Jim grit his teeth and listened to Dustin recount their adventure to the museum, then the gas station (it took everything in him not to interrupt and tell him that staying in the city was a _stupid. Idea.) _and the restaurant, and finally the hotel.

“We’re doing an interrogation now. We wanted to know what we’re up against.”

Jim pinched the bridge of his nose. If these kids didn’t die, he would kill them himself.

“You shouldn’t be conducting interrogations, you should’ve been trying to escape while you were ahead, do you understand? Leave this agent alone and come back to the house—” Jim heard another voice.

“Dustin, we gotta go!”

Jim clenched the phone. “Will?”

“What happened?” Dustin asked. Jim could hear a flurry of activity through the line: a door slamming; the voices of the others shouting at each all of a sudden, the jostling of the phone on Dustin’s end. Jim heard snippets of sentences: “flooding the main entrance,” “nowhere to go,” “they opened the gate.”

…_They opened the gate._

“Looks like there’s trouble, gotta go Hop!” Dustin’s voice had already grown distant. “El says hi. We’ll be heading to your house—” the line went dead.

Jim stared at the mouthpiece in his hands before gently placing it in the receiver. He ran his hands through his hair, suddenly tired. He wanted a cigarette. He almost reached for one before he remembered El had asked him to stop smoking on account of his health. Instead, he reached for the phone again. This was not going to be a fun conversation with Joyce.

___________________

El watched, helpless, as her friends scrambled to put together a plan.

“We’ve got nowhere to go,” Lucas said. He kept glancing nervously at the door, as if he expected someone to come knocking at any moment. “They’re probably coming up the elevator as we speak.”

“We won’t make it if we can’t get back down to the lobby,” Max said.

There was something forming in the front of El’s mind, based off what her friends were saying. They were surrounded on all sides and they couldn’t go back down… El’s gaze wandered to where they left John tied up on the balcony, and then to the building beyond. Her thoughts clicked together.

“Guys,” El turned back to her friends to find that they’d formed a sort-of group huddle around her.

“—don’t think we can afford to fend them off,” Will was saying.

“Guys,” El tried again. They all looked at her. “We can’t go down, but what if we went up to the roof? We might be able to building hop.”

El watched, amused, as understanding dawned on their faces.

“It’s a good idea,” Dustin mused.

“It’s a great idea,” Will said. “The only idea we have.”

“Yeah, but how will we get to the roof? Like Lucas said, they’re probably coming up the stairs, and there’s no roof button on the elevator,” Dustin continued.

“There might be a fire escape,” Will said.

Mike made a noise in the back of his throat and broke away from the group. El watched him sprint outside and look around wildly before coming back inside.

“There’s one right next to the balcony,” he said. “it goes all the way up.”

There was a small flurry of activity. Lucas, Dustin, and Will pushed a gorgeous dresser (that Mike unhelpfully informed them was mahogany) against the door while Max and El got to the fire escape outside and began climbing the fire escape. El tossed one sad look at John as she went up. He glared at her. She mouthed, _sorry._He looked away.

Max made it to the roof first, and immediately ran to the other side of the building. El climbed up after her and looked down to confirm the boys were behind her. Dustin, Will, and Lucas were climbing up the ladder. Mike was gagging John.

“I dunno,” Max said. “It’s kind of a jump.”

El came to stand beside her. It _was _kind of a jump. The space between the building was probably a service alleyway for the hotel. Lucas appeared on her other side.

“If we try to jump that,” he said easily, “we will die.”

El nudged him in the ribs. Hard. She glanced behind to see where the other three were. Mike, Will, and Dustin, were sprinting over when the door to the roof burst open. El turned to it in time to see an agent dressed in black emerge. She thrust a hand out and the door slammed shut.

“There’s no time!” Mike shouted. He didn’t break speed, instead running harder. Before anyone could stop him, he’d planted his foot on the edge and leapt. El watched, horrified, as Mike soared through the air. For a terrifying moment, she thought he wasn’t going to make it, but then he tumbled onto the other building and popped up.

“What—are you—waiting for?” he panted.

The others seemed to get the idea. Everyone backed up and took a running start towards the edge, while Will searched rapidly for something that would hold the door long enough for El to let jump.

“There,” El pointed at a group of metal chairs huddled in a corner. The others took off in a sprint while Will snagged a chair and crammed it against the doorknob of the door. Hesitantly, El released her hold on the door. It held. El took a deep breath and jogged over to where Will was standing. Together, they burst forward towards the ledge, planted their feet, and leapt.

It was terrifying. Suddenly without something solid under her feet, she could feel the weight of gravity pulling her down, she saw the distance between her and the ground, _felt _it like a weight on her shoulders. But then there was wind blowing through her hair, Will laughing by her side, her friends cheering them on from the other roof, and El felt lighter than air in the moment it took them to cross.

They both tumbled to the ground on the other building, and El was surprised to find herself laughing. Mike came over and stuck his hand out, amusement dancing in his eyes. El took his hand and stood up.

“That was fun,” she said, smiling.

Mike grinned at her. “I thought so too.”

"No actually, it was terrifying.” Dustin said. He’d helped Will up.

“I think whether it was fun or not is a conversation for not right now,” Lucas said. “we’re not exactly in the clear.” He cleared his throat. “But it was totally awesome.”

Max cut in. “We have to go.” She pointed at the roof of the hotel, where the iron chair was just barely holding the door shut. Someone was pounding against it. “They’ll probably make it to the balcony soon.”

El knew Max was right, and judging from everyone else’s expressions, they knew it too. El took off running towards the other side of the building and did not look back to see if the others were following her. 

The next jump was just as fun as the last, even more so with all of her friends by her side. They jumped from building, to another, and another, before swerving off around the part of whatever building they were on that lead to the roof. They formed a circle in shade, winded but alive.

“This—is—great and all,” Dustin gasped, “but we really need to figure out—what our plan is. We can’t keep this up forever.”

“We’re gonna run out of building eventually. Then we’re screwed,” Will said.

Lucas leaned around the corner and peered in the direction they came. “The good news, though,” he turned back to the group. “Is that they didn’t follow us.”

“But what are we going to do now?” Mike asked. “We need ideas, people.”

Mike’s declaration brought forth nothing but silence. El was running low on ideas. She looked from her friends faces to the little area on the roof. There was really nothing up here, besides a few heavy, plastic chairs and an overused ashtray. They had a nice view of the city, could hear the cars below them, the cloudless sky above them.

“…We could…” Max started and trailed off. El was focusing on what Max was going to say, when what she was standing in front of caught El’s eye. It was an old bulletin board. Most of the postings on the board were old, or rain-rotted, but in the center was a bright advertisement for a parade.

“The parade,” El said. Everyone looked at her. She moved across the circle and pointed at the flyer. “Look. We could leave out this way. There’s bound to be a lot of people.”

“Holy _shit, _El, you’re a genius!” Lucas looked like he wanted to hug her. She smiled. He squinted at the flyer. “The fun starts at 5:15,” he read.

Dustin looked at his watch. “We’ve got time, but not a lot.” He pointed at the bottom half of the flyer. “There’s a map.”

“We’re here, on Morris Avenue,” Max said. There was a helpful You Are Here marker on the map. “And these roads, highlighted in blue, is the path of the parade.”

El stared at the map. There was a Parade begin marker, which seemed to be a maze of streets away from where they were. The parade snaked through the city and ended in a park a few miles away.

“The question is,” Max continued, “where did we park?”

“On Southeastern boulevard,” Will answered.

Max first located Southeastern Boulevard, then traced the path of the parade. The streets didn’t intersect, much to El’s disappointment. The parade careened off down Evison Avenue, two streets away from the parking deck. 

“It’s close enough,” Mike said. “It’s all we’ve got.”

Around the corner, a door opened.

Everyone shot up, ready to run. El watched as a boy no older than them froze and stared at them, a deer in headlights. No one said anything. The boy blinked at them.

“Uh.” He licked his lips. “You guys get locked out?”

“Yes!” Mike shouted. Everyone winced.

“…Okay. Well, uh, here’s the door, I guess.” He walked out further, holding the door.

Max surged forward and grabbed it from him.

“Thanks,” she said. He flushed.

“I’m gonna…” He produced a box of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket, waved them, and stalked to a corner of the roof. El took that as a sign to go.

“Mike, grab the flyer. Let’s go guys. We can’t stay in one place for too long.”

Mike snagged the flyer and together they left the building. They stayed in the lobby of the apartment building for a few minutes, arguing over where to go. At one point, Will stepped outside for a moment to check if they were actually on Morris Avenue and to see if the coast was clear. Apparently, they were in the right place and there had been no one suspicious.

“Although,” Will pointed out, “at this point, everyone could be an enemy.” El agreed with him strongly.

Mike let Lucas take the lead, because he’d apparently been in boy scouts the longest. Mapped out the route to the start of parade, and when everyone was ready, they left.

From the moment they left the building, El was on high alert. Lucas led them purposefully through the streets, only ever pausing to cross the streets. El noticed that everyone else was on the lookout too, constantly glancing around and casting suspicious looks, (or, in Max’s case, full on glares) at any stranger whose gaze lingered on them for more than a moment.

El could feel rage boiling low in her belly. Earlier that day they’d been so carefree, a smile pinned to each of their faces, soaking up the joy of their easy camaraderie and the feeling of freedom before it all came crashing down. Something must show on her face, because she felt Mike slip his hand in hers and give it a squeeze.

“You okay?” he asked quietly.

El doesn’t answer right away and Mike doesn’t press her. She loves him for that. They silently follow Lucas for a while before El says anything.

“It’s not fair,” she muttered. There are other words, but El doesn’t bother with them. She settled on the unfairness of it all, and that’s enough for her. It’s enough for Mike too, because his jaw is working against all the things he hasn’t said.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Yeah.”

Lucas turned around to face the group and continued walking backward. “Okay, the next street over should be the parade. But don’t you think those people will have that covered. Or at least some agents surveying the crowd?”

To El’s right, Will nodded. “I was thinking that. Do you think—Maybe there’s a way we can sneak into the parade itself? Not be stuck on the sidelines, but, I don’t know, hide in the floats? I doubt they want to make a larger scene than they already have.”

Lucas glanced over his shoulder, and then made a right. Ahead of them was a crowd of people. El peered into the throng. Through the mothers with strollers, the elderly with folding chairs, and small children running around, she could just barely see a thin barricade holding everyone back from the road.

“We’d have to find where the parade is coming from.” Mike said.

El blinked. “I can do it,” she offered.

The group turned to look at her, bewildered. El burst out laughing. Oh god, she loved her friends, but they were dumb sometimes. She sincerely hoped that they knew her powers were not the solution to every problem. Chuckling, El jerked her thumb at one of the mothers with a stroller. “One of them is bound to know where it’s starting.”

There was a brief moment were everyone realized she was talking about normal stuff. “Sounds good enough to me,” Lucas said. El turned and started towards the mothers and was surprised to find Max jog up beside her.

“Nobody goes alone,” she said.

El smiled at her, grateful. Max linked their arms, and together they marched up to the crowd.

___________________

Honestly? Mike was so used to things not working out for them, (today, for example) that he was dismayed that sneaking into a parade would be so easy. Particularly because they were not sneaking.

El and Max had returned from the group of moms armed with not only information on where the floats were coming from, but a fresh flyer with the parade route and two bottles of water. They shared the water and Lucas threw away their old flyer.

The girls had led the way to a warehouse not too far from where the first parade watchers had lined. Mike wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, perhaps the small parades that they had in Hawkins, with people throwing candy from the back of a poorly decorated truck. This was not that. There were numerous floats, decorated according to various themes: a vegetable float, multicultural floats, and some floats obviously sponsored by local businesses. Mike counted three massive animal balloons being blown up, two entirely different high school marching bands and groups of performers, some on stilts and others groups of dancers.

They’d walked into the warehouse, fully prepared to knock out some people and steal their costumes when a woman had marched up to them, her bun coming undone and her finger tapping her clipboard.

“Are you volunteer group C?” she asked.

They all glanced at each other. Mike coughed. “Uh… yes?”

The woman heaved a sigh. “You were supposed to be _hours _ago! Goodness, and there was supposed to be at least ten of you! What happened?” she stared at them. Mike couldn’t tell if she was genuinely mad at them or just severely stressed out.

“There was a car accident,” Dustin said from behind him. “Really bad. We were the only ones that could go on ahead. They told us to look for a miss…?”

“Mrs. Donaldson. You found her. I’m the event coordinator,” she sighed. Mike was struck with the feeling that she’d rather be anyone else. “I’m sorry about the car accident, was anyone in your group seriously hurt?”

“We wouldn’t be here if anyone was injured, ma’am,” Max said. “It all became a transportation issue.”

Mrs. Donaldson was nodding, but her gaze had wandered down to her clipboard. When Max finished she clicked her tongue and nodded. “Well alright. You _were _supposed to help with the set-up, but that’s already almost finished.” She turned on her heel and marched off. “Follow me!”

They took off after her, and she led them to a little side area filled with boxes of material that was apparently meant for volunteers.

“We ordered shirts and hats for everyone, so please change. We need to that know you’re a part of the parade and not a civilian trying to slip through.” Mrs. Donaldson motioned to the small box of walkie-talkies. “These are for the volunteers and security, and _please _tell me you know how to use them.”

Mike nodded enthusiastically. He saw the others do the same.

“Good. If I had to explain it again I think I’d die. Come find me when you’re all set and I’ll let you know your new assignments.”

With that, Mrs. Donaldson spun around and marched away.

Mike had turned to the others, shrugged, and started digging through the boxes of t-shirts for one his size.

“This is really convenient,” Will said.

Mike was sure Will didn’t mean anything by it, but still. He turned to tell him something about not jinxing the Party, but Lucas had beat him to the punch.

“Don’t say anything else, man,” Lucas said. “Don’t jinx us.”

Everyone grabbed a t-shirt and a hat and walked to the restrooms nearby to change. When they regrouped, Mike surveyed the results. They didn’t look too different, (it’s not like they had wigs to put on) but a change in outfit to blend in with the rest of the volunteers might be enough.

“I know I’m not the most fashionable person,” Max began, “but these shirts are hideous.”

Mike had to agree; they were the color of an almost-ripe banana, with a poorly drawn interpretation of a parade on the front and volunteer in bold letters on the back. Behind them, Mrs. Donaldson strode purposefully into the area and paused, as if she’d forgotten they were there.

“You’re all dressed? Ah, wonderful.” She walked closer towards them. “Don’t you love the shirts? My son designed them.”

Mike chuckled, a bit of shame coloring his cheeks. Mrs. Donaldson nodded soundly at them and ushered them out of the room and back into the warehouse, where everyone in the parade was dashing around, making the final preparations to walk.

“Since there’s only six of you, I’m putting you on water duty; go ahead and split yourselves up into two groups. The first group will be between the Indianapolis dancers and the vegetable float. The second will between the elephant balloon and marching band two. You all will be responsible for passing water to anyone who needs it, and please, try to ration. It’s a long route.” Mrs. Donaldson paused as someone dressed in the volunteer shirt ran up to her to let her know that everything was set. She sent them away and resumed her speech.

“Listen. You see those satchels over there? They’re filled with water bottles. Each of you grab one and get one walkie talkie for each of your groups. And then get into position! We’re ready to roll out. We could stand to be a few minutes behind schedule but I’d really rather us not be.”

Mrs. Donaldson did not wait to ask if they had any questions. Instead, she unhooked the walkie talkie from her belt and walked away. Mike stared after her for a moment, blinking, before he whirled around to face the party.

“We need a game plan,” he hissed. “_Now.”_

“Already on it,” Dustin said. Lucas and Will had disappeared, perhaps to grab the walkie talkies and the satchels. Max pulled out the new flyer from her pocket and passed it to Dustin.

“Okay, listen. We’re in two groups, one way ahead of the other. The parade splits off from where we need to go here,” Dustin traced the path of the parade with his finger. Behind them, people in matching volunteer shirts did final checks on all the performers. “And the parking deck is here, two streets over. I think Lucas and Will need to go with the first group, sneak out of the parade, run to the parking garage, get the cars, swing by, and pick the other group up somewhere along the parade route.”

Lucas and Will returned, weighed down with satchels filled with water bottles and two walkies talkies. Mike helped them pass around the bottles while Dustin repeated the plan.

“We’ve gotta be in groups of three,” Lucas said. “Dustin, come with us. You’re the one with the plan.”

They quickly found an empty channel on the walkie talkies and agreed to switch back and forth between the parade channel and theirs.

“You’ve gotta go,” Mike said. The parade had started to push forward. Distantly, he could hear the first marching band start to play a song. “We’ll keep in touch.”

Mike waved goodbye as the boys ran ahead, ready to slip into place and carry out the plan. When they disappeared from sight, Max led their group to where they were supposed to be. Mike clenched the walkie talkie in his hand and readied himself for a rough ride.

___________________

It wasn’t a rough ride.

From there, things went.

Smoothly.

And it wasn’t— Mike hadn’t meant to let his guard down. But once the parade had pushed onto the street, they were _busy_. On the parade channel, they were constantly being called back and forth between floats to hand out water to the performers, and on their own channel Dustin kept them up to date with what street they were on.

It was _fun. _They always returned to their spot by the marching band and the elephant balloon. At one point, while Max was running water to a parade security member near the end of the parade, El sighed happily beside Mike.

“I’ve never seen a balloon that big,” she said. El was looking up at it with enchantment shining in her eyes.

Mike stared at her. He was about to ask how that was possible but remembered that the little parades they had in Hawkins was nothing compared to this. Sometimes it was so easy to forget… _everything. _That El hadn’t had the childhood they’d had, that she hadn’t shared their same experiences. A flash of anger burst up in him, as it always did when he thought about what happened, but the sight of El, radiant and happy in the afternoon, quelled the anger.

“If we get out of this in one piece,” Mike said, taking her hand, “I’m taking you to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.”

She smiled at him. “I would like that,” she said.

Max came jogging back, waving at the crowd and giving the occasional high-five to the children hanging onto the barricade.

“Someone’s a celebrity,” Mike said. It came a lot less sarcastic than he’d meant for it to be.

“We volunteers are very popular with the crowd,” Max told them. “I have been told by no less than five mothers that I am a _dear _to be volunteering after school.”

“Maybe you just like attention,” El said. “They don’t like Mike like that.”

El and Max looked at Mike’s scrunched up face and burst into laughter. Mike grinned. Nothing made him feel better than seeing his friends happy. It was good to see them laugh; he thought it’d be harder after everything that happened today, but… well. Despite it all, it had kind of been a good day. Mike unclipped the walkie talkie from his belt and switched to their channel.

“—coming in, over.”

“Hi, we’re back, over.” Mike said.

“Would it kill you to switch over more often? Over.”

Max snatched the walkie from Mike. “Sorry Dustin. We were having fun, over.”

There was a pause from the other side. “Oh. Well. Anyway, we’re about to sneak out of the parade. There’s no security on this side, we’re just gonna squeeze through the barricade. I’ll tell you when we get out. Don’t switch back to the parade, give us a second, over.”

They all huddled around the walkie talkie as they waited to hear back to from Dustin. Behind them, the marching band started another song. The dancers leading the band pushed forward, forcing them out of the way. Mike led them forward, wary of the people handling the elephant balloon in front of them. A minute passed. Mike’s grip tightened around the walkie talkie and willed Dustin to speak.

“Maybe…” El started, but she trailed off. Mike did _not _want her to finish that thought.

The walkie crackled to life. “Hey still there? Over.”

Mike sighed in relief. He was surprised how quickly dread had come over him. “Yeah we’re still here, over.”

“Oh good. Well, we’re out. I hope they didn’t want these satchels back. I’m out of water anyway.” Mike heard Lucas say something. “—yeah yeah. Okay. Apparently we’re going to run to the parking deck. Lucas says the sooner we’re out of here, the better. I say switch over for a few minutes, then switch back. Oh, and watch the streets. We’re gonna need to know where you are and it shouldn’t take us long to get the cars if we’re running.”

Okay, you’ll hear from us in a few minutes, over.” Mike switched back over in time to hear someone asking for water from the jugglers. They spent the next couple of minutes running around passing out water and trying to cover for the upper half of the parade that was Team A’s territory.

Mike checked Dustin’s channel, heard nothing, and switched back over. Someone needed water near the end of the parade. Mike patted his bag and came up short. Max did the same. El pulled a water bottle out of hers.

“I’ll handle it.”

Mike watched her go for a moment, before switching again.

“—Ike? Mike? Son of a bitch could you switch over—”

“We’re here, Dustin. Over.”

Max pressed closer to Mike. Something in Dustin’s tone was off, and Mike hoped to God that it was only the staticky connection and not an actual problem.

Okay. Okay. Update: we have a problem.”

Mike swore. Dustin continued.

“The tires to Joyce’s car were slashed, and there are people watching the car from across the deck. They were doing a pretty good job of acting nonchalant too, I almost didn’t see them—”

Lucas’s muffled voice cracked through. “We almost walked right up to it, but Dustin pulled us in the opposite direction and told us to not act suspicious. We’re gonna check my car next. Get ready for a tight squeeze if everything’s okay, over.”

Mike’s face pinched together. There went their lucky break. El came jogging back. Her face fell when she looked at them.

“No good news?” she asked.

Mike and Max shook their heads.

Max explained to El what happened to the boys while Mike scanned the crowd. There was no one in the sea of smiling faces that seemed to be watching them; everyone’s attention was focused either on the balloons or the marching band or one of the numerous floats and acts. He’d teased Max about her celebrity as a volunteer, but the truth was they were almost a non-entity among giants. There were a lot more interesting things happening around them. The marching band behind started playing an outstanding rendition of _Take on Me. _People gaped up at the elephant balloon. It wasn’t like at the museum, where Mike could _feel_eyes on him. He remembered the story Nancy had told him about her and Jonathon, at the park, hoping to be intercepted. 

“It was like, everywhere I looked, all eyes were on us. But nobody was paying us any attention. It’s a gut feeling,” she’d told him. Mike’s gut was telling him that for right now, they were safe.

Mike felt the walkie-talkie slip out of his hands. El had taken it.

“Guys?”

Nothing.

The parade moved around them. They were falling behind where they were supposed to be. El changed the station until she found one with nothing but static.

“We need to keep up. We can’t do much blending in if we’re just standing around.” Mike nudged them forward and they started walking again.

El closed her eyes and pressed the walkie talkie to her ear.

Mike secured his grip on El’s arm while Max surged forward, wrapping an arm on her shoulder.

Mike checked the crowd again and Max did he same, waving and smiling at people. They locked eyes and Max gave him a thumb’s up. Hopper had hosted training sessions where El slipped into the void in less than ideal conditions. The Party had come over armed with pots and pans and on one memorable occasion, a trumpet. It had taken El a long while to master it but after a few months of struggle, she did.

“I—I see them,” El said. Mike’s arm tightened around hers.

“And?”

“They’re getting in Lucas’s car. The tires are okay… I think, they were running. They’re breathing hard…” she paused. “They’re ducking down. Lucas and Dustin are in the front seats. Will is staring out the back window… I think he’s waiting for someone to walk by.”

“They’re sitting up. Will is telling something to Dustin and Lucas. I can’t—I can’t hear them. But. Lucas is starting the car, and they’re pulling away. Dustin has the walkie talkie, he’s trying to… oh!”

El’s eyes snapped open and she fumbled with the walkie talkie. Mike held her steady while Max surveyed the crowd. El started flipping through channels before they heard Dustin’s voice bleed through.

“Guys?” Dustin’s voice didn’t sound panicked, exactly, but there was an edge to it.

El let out a breath. “We’re hear, over.”

Mike pressed closer to El to hear.

“Okay, okay, good. Lucas’s car was totally fine, thank _Christ, _but I think that’s only because they didn’t know which car was his? Anyway, we’re pretty sure their solution was to just watch each deck for us. The same dude has been walking around parking deck 3, trying to look busy. We waited until he was gone to…” Mike heard Lucas’s voice, then Dustin came back. “What street are you on, over?”

Mike grimaced. He hadn’t been paying attention to the progress of the parade. But Max apparently had been, and she snatched the mic.

“We’re passing Church Avenue, over.”

“Okay.” They listened to some fumbling, a muffled swear, and then Dustin came back to them. “Will’s got the flyer with the map open, we’re on the way. Get out of the parade and go to… what street?”

That last part was not meant for them. Will’s voice crackled through the walkie. “Go to the intersection of Aluna and Hickory, that’s a street over, and be ready to hop in.”

Dustin came back. “You got that?”

“They’ve got it; leave them alone. I need to know where I’m going,” Lucas said.

Fine, fine. Haul ass, guys! We’re basically there, over.”

El lowered the walkie talkie. “How the hell are we busting out of here?”

Mike scanned the barricade for a break. They had fallen well behind at this point; the marching band had almost passed them. He found a thin break in the line of the barricade three groups away.

“Look up there,” he said. “past the Irish float. You see the break in the barricade? We can slip through.”

Max squinted in the direction he was pointing. “Yeah I’m looking up there, and clearly you can’t see because there is a whole cop guarding that section.”

Mike looked again. There were the acts, the break, and… a police officer, undeniably telling an overzealous father and the child hoisted on his shoulders that they were not allowed beyond that section.

“We don’t have time,” El said. She looked dead on her feet. “We’ll just have to figure something out.”

El grabbed their hands and marched them right up to the break. Mike watched the policeman’s gaze slip over them, relaxed, and then slip back to them, confused. . El showed no intention of stopping, and right as they pulled up the officer held up his hands.

“Woah kids, hang on,” he said. “I was told volunteers need to stick with the parade.”

Mike looked from El to Max. Both girls looked as though they were ready to simply ignore this dude and walk out. Mike had the sneaking suspicion that that would not go well; he decided to take matters into his own hands.

“We’re. uhm. We’re getting more water.” He motioned to his empty satchel. El and Max nodded enthusiastically at his side. “Mrs. Donaldson, the event coordinator, gave us the go ahead. The performers are getting tired. It’s too hot for them to go with no water.” Mike fell reliably on the weather. It was the one topic that lulled most adults into security.

The officer scratched his head. “It _is _warm, I’ll give you that.”

Dustin’s voice bled through the walkie talkie. El put it behind her back.

“What was that?”

“Probably just one of the dancers. They were complaining about water. The water that we should go get right now immediately.” Max leaned forward. “You don’t want them to become dehydrated, do you?”

Ah, the combination of hot weather and the threat of dehydration. Enough to make any adult fold. The officer was looking at the three of them, teetering on the edge of letting them through.

Mike decided to add icing to the cake. “When we come back we’ll be coming back right through here, and you’ll be the first to get an ice-cold bottle,” he said.

A nice clean bribe with the promise of their return. What could be better than that? The office acquiesced. “Alright,” he said. “Don’t take too long, now.”

They surged past the barrier, shouting their thanks, and then jogged through the crowd. Mike was aware that they shouldn’t bring attention to themselves, that they were in hostile territory and that there were people looking for them, so he pulled his volunteer hat low over his eyes and pressed close to El and Max.

They emerged on the sidewalk. Max had pulled the flyer out of her pocket and had already begun jogging to where they need to go. After a second, she stuffed it back in her pocket and took off. El followed without hesitation and Mike followed a second later.

Max lead them to the intersection of Aluna and Hickory, where Lucas had pulled up to the curb and was waiting for them. Will threw open the back door and the three of them squished inside. They had barely closed the door when Lucas pulled away and turned towards the highway.

___________________

And it wasn’t. In the end, Dustin was fine. He was fine. It was fine.

The highway peeled away in front of them, and if Lucas was pushing a little over the speed limit than no one was complaining. Dustin wasn’t sure what kind of mood he’d expected when Mike, El, and Max climbed into the car, but it was definitely something along the lines of somber, tense, quiet.

This wasn’t it.

“I feel kind of bad that we stole not only their satchels, t-shirts, and hats, but we took their walkie talkies, too.” Mike said. Laughter filled up the car. Dustin let out a weak chuckle.

El’s soft voice reached him in the front seat. “Dustin?”

Dustin sucked in a breath and turned around to peer at her. She was squished between Max and the door. In any other situation, he would have laughed at seeing the four of them battling each other for some room in the backseat of Lucas’s car. But El was looking like she _knew _something was wrong, and that just made him feel worse.

“What’s up?”

El took a minute to gather her thoughts, and Dustin let her. The conversation carried on around the two of them. Will told a joke about something they discussed over lunch, and everyone laughed again.

“You know it’s okay, right? This wasn’t your fault.”

Well _someone _certainly knew how hit the nail on the head. “I’m fine,” Dustin lied.

“Friends don’t lie,” El shot back. She was ready for it.

“You’re not going to let me wallow, are you?”

El shook her head.

“Fine. It’s… It’s just that I wanted today to be perfect, ya know?” Dustin took a deep breath. “I wanted us all to have a day where we wouldn’t have to worry about anything except having fun and spending time together. We don’t have a lot of time until we all go to college and then we won’t see each other every day so I wanted us to have something good to fall back on when we missed each other. But instead we got chased through the city and _shot at _and I’m sorry because maybe if we had just stayed home and gone to class it would’ve been fine. We would’ve been fine. But it’s my fault that we almost died today and it sucks and I’m sorry.”

Dustin wiped angrily at his eyes. It was stupid to cry. He also knew logically, that this wasn’t his fault and he had no part in it, but an ugly feeling had taken root after the museum and had grown each time something had happened. He didn’t realize how quiet the car had gotten until he heard Lucas say, “So that’s bullshit.”

Dustin spun around to face Lucas. “What?”

Lucas’s eyes never left the road. “You heard me.”

“Lucas is right.”

Dustin turned to face Max. She shrugged. “He is.”

“I don’t think you realize it but weird shit happens to us all the time,” Will said. “I think El is a prime example.”

El nodded in agreement. 

“And you know what goes along with the weird shit?” Mike interjected. He looked affronted. “Danger. A lot of it. This was honestly inevitable, and if you think we’re blaming you for what happened? Well, that’s an insult to us.”

“It’s true,” Max said. “I’m insulted.”

Dustin blinked at all of them. “Our one day off was ruined. How can you all be so.. so—”

“Nonchalant?”

“Over it?”

“Unbothered?”

Dustin nodded at all their choices. He was upset and angry. God, was he angry.

“Because honestly Dustin,” El said gently, “even with everything going on, we had fun today. It was a good day.”

“Yeah, I had a good time at the museum drawing you idiots,” Will shouted. “I’ll make copies and everyone can get a free copy, laugh whenever you look at them.”

“I got to spend time with my favorite girl in the world, without you boys,” Max said. She’d thrown an arm around El (probably to get some more space).

“We tried _gourmet barbecue_,” Mike said.

“It was pretty good,” Lucas admitted. “I honestly didn’t expect it to be.”

“Yeah,” Dustin echoed. “It kind of was.”

“I saw a parade today. A real one. It was nice,” El said.

Dustin watched as all of his friends started shouting over each other to talk about the day. There was a lot of do-you-remembers and that-one-time, as if it hadn’t all happened a handful of hours ago. After a few stories, Dustin let out a real laugh. And after a few more, he joined in.

By the time they pulled into the driveway of Will’s house, the sun was sinking behind the tips of the trees and Dustin felt better. Much better. Hop was pacing on the front porch of the house, a rifle slung over his shoulder and Joyce by his side. They climbed out of the car laughing, and even with all the BS Dustin knew that he’d made the right choice. As they marched up the stairs to the house, Dustin smiled to himself.

Best Skip-Day Ever.

**Author's Note:**

> I had so much fun writing this fic. It's actually the first one I've ever finished. hahaha...ha...ha... 
> 
> Anyway if you find my references to the movie, let me know!
> 
> I listened to Wasteland, Baby! by Hozier on repeat while writing this fic. It kept me going. I highly recommend giving it a listen.


End file.
